
Book ./ i ^^ . 



CORRESPONDENCE //^^ 

BETWEEN ^ /-"^f 

JOHN aUINCY ADAMS, 

President of the United States, 



SEVERAL CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS 



sokcebniiTg 



Z^t eijat^e 



A DESIGN TO DISSOLVE THE UNION 



JLUESEB TO H1.T:E EXISTED VS THAT STATE. 



-O'*' 



To which are now added 

ADDITIONAL. PAPERS, 

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE SUBJECT. 



PRINTED AND SOLD BY JONATHAKT EUiotT 

1829. 



Advertisement to the Boston Edition. 

The NationitJ- Intelligencer of the 21st of Octo- 
ber last, contains a statement made by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, and published by his 
authority, in which he denounces certain citizens 
of Massachusetts, as having been engaged in a de- 
sign to produce a dissolution of the bnion, and the 
establishment of a separate Confederation. As no 
individual was named in that communication, a few 
citizens of Boston and its vicinity, who supposed 
that they or their friends might be considered by 
ihe public, if not intended by Mr Adams, to be 
implicated as ])arties to the alleged conspiracy, 
thought proper to address to him a letter dated on 
the 26th of INovember, asking for such a specifica- 
tion of the charge and of the evidence as might tend 
to remove suspicion from the innocent, and to ex- 
pose the guilty, if any such there were. To this 
letter they received a reply from Mr Adams, dated 
on the .'iOth of December, in which he declines to 
make the exphuiation recpiested of him, and gives 
his reasons for that refusal. 

Tliis correspondence, together with the origina! 
communication in the National Intelligencer, is now 
presented to the public, accompanied by an appeal 
to the citizens of the United States, in behalf of 
those who may be considered as implicated in this 
charge. 

If the result should be, either to fix a stigma on 
any citizens of Massachusetts, or on the other hand 
to exhibit Mr Adams as the author of an unfounded 
and culmnnious charge, those wiio have made this 
publication \n ill have the consolation of reilecting 
that it is not they who began this controversy, and 
that they are not answerable for its result. That 
result they cheerfully leave to an impartial and 
discerning public; feeling assured that he most 
thorough investij;ation will serve only more fully 
to prove the futility of the accusation. 



From the National Intelligencer of October £1, 1828. 

The publication of a letter from Mr Jefferson to Mr GileSj 
«]ated the 25th of December, 1825, concerning a communica- 
tion made by Mr Adams to Mr Jefferson, in relation to the 
embargo of 1807, renders necessary the following statementj^ 
which we are authorized by Mr Adams to make. 

The indistinctness of tlie recollectionsof Mr Jefferson, of 
which his letter itself feelingly complains, has blended toge- 
ther three distinct periods of time, and the information which 
he did receive from Mr Adams, with events which afterwards 
occurred, and of which Mr Adams could not have informed 
him. It fortunately happens that this error is apparent on 
the face of the letter itself. It says, ' Mr Adams called on 
me pending the embargo^ and while endeavors were making 
to obtain its repeal.' He afterwards says, that, at this inter- 
view, Mr Adams, among other things, told him that 'he had 
information, of the most unquestionable certainty, that cer- 
tain citizens of the Eastern States, (I think he named Massa 
chusetts particularly) were in negotiation with agents of the 
British government, the object of which was an agreement 
that the New-England States should^a^e no further part in 
the war then going on.^' &c. 

The embargo was enacted on the 22d of December, 1807, 
and repealed by the non-intercourse act on the 1st of March, 
1809. The war was declared in June, 1812. 

In August, 1809, Mr Adams embarked fur Russia, nearly, 
three 3'ears before the Declaration of War, and did not return 
to the United States till August, 1817, nearly three years 
after the conclusion of the peace. 

Mr Madison was inaugurated President of the United State? 
on the 4th of March, 1809. 

It was impossible, therefore, that Mr Adams could have 
given any information to Mr Jeflerson, of negotiations by 
citizens of Mas-sachusetts with British agents during ike ivar, 
or having relation to it. Mr Adams never had knowledge of. 
any such negotiations. 

The interview, to vvhich Mr Jefferson alludes, took place 
on the 15th of March, 1808, pending the eiubargo; but, at the 
session of Congress before the substitution for it of the non- 
intcicourse act The information, given by Mr Adams ta 
Mr. Jefterson, had only an indirect reference even to the em* 
bargo, and none to arty endeavors for obtaining its repeal.— 
It was the substance of a letter from the Governor of Nova 
Scotia, to a person in the State of Massachusetts, written in 
the summer of 1807, and before the existence of the embargo; 
which letter Mr Adams had seen. It had been shown to him 
without any injunction of secrecy, and he betrayed no confi- 
dence in coinmunicating its puiport to ?4-r JeScrson. Its ob- 



.% MR ADAMS, 

jcct was to countenance and accredit a calumny then exten- 
sively prevailing; among the enemies ef Mr J. and the oppo- 
nents of his Administration, that he and his measures were 
subservient to France; and it alleged that the British govern- 
ment were infoimed of a plan, determined upon by France, 
to eftect the conquest of the British provinces on this Conti- 
nent, and a revolution in the government of the United States, 
as means to which they were first to produce war between 
the United States and England. From the fact that the Go- 
vernor of Nova Scotia had Mritten such a letter to an indi- 
vidual in Massachusetts, connected with other facts, and with 
the movements of the party then predominant in that State, 
Mr. Adams and Mr Jefferson drew their inferences, which sub- 
sequent events doubtless confirmed: but which inferences 
neither Mr Jefferson nor Mr Adams then communicated to 
each other. This was the only confidential interview which, 
during the administration of Mr Jefferson, took place between 
him and Mr Adams. It took place first at the request of Mr 
Wilson Carey Nicholas, then a member of the House of Re- 
presentatives of the United States, a confidential friend of 
Mr Jefferson; next, of Mr Robinson, then a Senator from 
Vermont; and, lastly, of Mr Giles, then a Senator from Vir- 
,Tinia — which request is the only intervention of Mr Giles ever 
known to Mr Adams, between him and Mr Jefferson. It is 
therefore not surprising, that no such intervention occurred 
to the recollection of Mr Jefferson, in December, 1825. 

This interview was in March, 1808. In May, of the same 
year, Mr Adams resigned his seat in the Senate of the U. S. 

At the next session of Congress, which commenced in No- 
vember, 1808, Mr Adams was a private citizen residing at 
Boston. The embargo was still in force, operating with ex 
trenie pressure upon the interests of the people, and was wield- 
ed as a most effective instrument by ihe party prevailing in 
the State, against the administration of Mr Jefferson. The 
people were constantly instigated to forcible resistance against 
jt; and juries after juries accjuitted the violators of it, upon 
tlie ground that it was unconstitutional, assumed in the face 
of a solemn decision of the District Court of the United States. 
A separation of the Union was openly stimulated in the public 
prints, and a Convention of Delegates of the New England 
Stati'S, to meet at New Haven, was intended and proposed. 

Mr (iiles, and several other members or Congress, during 
tliis session, wrote to Mr Adams confidential letters, inform- 
ing him of the various measures pr()j)osed as reinforcements ov 
substitutes for the embargo, and soliciting his opinions upon 
the suliject. He answereil those letters with frankness, and 
in cunfitlencp. He earnestly recommended the substitution 
of the non-intercourse for tiie embargo: and, in giving his rea- 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 5 

sons for this preference, was necessarily led to enlarge upon 
the views and purposes of certain leaders of the party, which 
bad the management of the State Legislature in their hands. 
He urged that a continuance of the embargo much longer 
would certainly be met by forcible resistance, supported by 
the Legislature, and probably by the Judiciary of the State. 
That to quell that resistance, if force should be resorted to by 
the Government, it would produce a civil war: and that, in 
that event, he had no doubt that the leaders of the party would 
secure the co-operation with them of Great Britain. That 
their object was, and had been for several years, a dissolution 
of the Union, and the establishment of a separate Confedera- 
tion, he knew from unequivocal evidence, although not prove- 
able in a court of law; and that, in the case of a civil war, the 
aid of G. Britain to effect that purpose would be as surely re- 
sorted to, as it would be indispensably necessary to the design. 

That these letters of Mr Adams to Mr Giles, and to other 
members of Congress, were read or shewn to Mr Jeiferson, 
he never was informed. They were written, not for commu- 
nication to him, but as answers to the letters of his correspon- 
dents, members of Congress, soliciting his opinion upon mea- 
sures in deliberation before them, and upon which they were 
to act. He wrote them as the solicited advice of fiiend to 
friend, both ardent friends to the Administration, and to their 
country. He wrote them to give to the supporters of the Ad- 
ministration of Mr Jefferson, in Congress, at the crisis, the 
best assistance, by his information and opinions, in his power. 
He had certainly no objection that they should be communi- 
cated to Mr Jefferson; but this was neither his intention nor 
desire. In one of the letters to Mr Giles he repeated an as- 
surance, which he had verbally given him during the preced- 
ing session of Ccngress, that he had, for his support of Mr 
Jefferson's administration, no personal or interested motive, 
and no favor to ask of him whatever. 

That these letters to Mr Giles were by him communicated 
to Mr Jefferson, Mr Adams believes from the import of this 
letter from Mr Jefferson, now first published, and which has 
elicited this statement. He believes, likewise, that other 
letters from him to other members of Congress, written du- 
ring the same session, and upon the same subject, were also 
communicated to him; and that their contents, after a lapse 
of seventeen years, were blended confusedly in his memory, 
first, with the information given by Mr Adams to him at their 
interview in March, 1808, nine months before; and next, with 
events which occurred during the subsequent war, and of which 
however natural as a sequel to the information and opinions of 
Mr Adams, communicated to him at those two preceding pe 
riods, he could not have received tlie information from him. 



6 MR ADAMS, 

COnZlZSPOSTDENCE. 

Jioston, November 29, 1S28. 
TO THE HONORABLE JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Sir: The undersigned citizens of Massachusetts, residing 
in Boston and its vicinity, take tlie liberty of addressing you on 
the subject of a statement published in the National Intelli- 
gencer of the iJlst of October, and which purports to have 
been communicated or authorized by you. 

In that statement, after speaking of those individuals in 
this State, whom the writer designates as 'certain leaders of 
the party which had the management of the State Legislature 
in their hands' in the year 1808, and saying, that in the event 
of a civil war, he (Mr Adams) ' had no doubt the leaders of 
the party would secure the co-operation with them of Great 
Britain:' it is added, 'That their object was, and had been 
for several years, a dissolution of the Union, and the estab- 
lishment of a separate Confederation, he knew from unequi- 
vocal evidence, although not proveabie in a court of law.' 

This, sir, is not the expression of an opinion as to the na- 
ture and tendency of the measures at that time publicly adop- 
ted, or proposed, by the party prevailing in the state of Mas- 
sachusetts. Every citizen was at liberty to form his own 
opinions on that subject; and we cheerfully submit the pro- 
priety of those measures to the judgment of an impartial pos- 
terity. But tlie sentence which we have quoted contains the 
assertion of a distinct fact, as one within your own knowledge. 
We are not permitted to consider it as the unguarded expres- 
sion of irritated feelings, hastily uttered at a time of great 
political excitement. Twenty years have elapsed since this 
charge was first made, in private correspondence with certain 
members of Congress; and it is now deliberately repeated, and 
brought before the public under the sanction of your name, as 
being founded on unequivocal evidence,w ithinyourknowledge. 

We do not claim for ourselves, nor even for those deceased 
friends whose representatives join in this address, the title of 
leaders of any party in Massachusetts; but we were associa- 
ted in politics with the party prevailing here at the period re- 
ferred to in the statement above mentioned; some of us con- 
curred in all the measures adopted bv tl. at party; and we all 
•warndy approved and supported tliose measures. Many of 
our associates who still survive, are dispersed throughout 
Massachusetts and Maine, and could not easily be convened 
to join us on the present occasion. We tiust, however, that 
you will not question our riuht, if not for ourselves alone, at 
least in behalf of the higFdy valued friends -^vith whom we act- 
ed at that lime, and especially of those of them \\ho arc now 
deceased, respectfully to ask from you such a full and precise 
statement of liie facts and evidence relating to this accusa- 
tion, as may enable us fairly to meet and answer it. 



AND THE BOSTON I^EDERALl'^TS. 7 

The object of this letter, therefore, is to request you to state, 
First, Who are the persons, desij^nated as leaders of the 
party prevailing in Massachusetts in the year 1808, whose 
object, you assert, was and had been for several years, a dis- 
goiution of the Union, and the establishment of a separate 
Confederation? and 

Sndly, tlie whole evidence on which that charge is founded, 
It is admitted in the statement of the charge, that it is not 
proveable in a court of law, and of course that you are not in 
possession of any legal evidence by which to maintain it. 
The evidence however must have been such as in your opin- 
ion would have been pronounced unequivocal by upright and 
honorable men of discriminating mindsjand we may certainly 
expect from your sense of justice and self respect a full dis- 
closure of all that you possess. 

A charge of this nature, coming as it does from the first 
magistrate of the nation, acquires an importance which we 
cannot affect to disregard; and it is one which we ought not 
to leave unanswered. We are therefore constrained, by a 
regard to our deceased friends and to our posterity, as Avell 
as by a sense of what is due to our own honor, most solemnly 
to declare, that we have never known nor suspected that the 
party which prevailed in Massachusetts in the year 1808, or 
any other party in this State, ever entertained the design to 
produce a dissolution of the Union, or the establishment of a 
separate Confederation. It is impossible for us in any other 
manner to refute, or even to answer this charge, until we see 
it fully and particularly stated, and know the evidence by 
whit h it is to be maintained. 

The undersigned think it due to themselves to add, that in 
making this application to you, they have no design nor wish 
to produce an effect on any political party or question what- 
ever. Neither is it their purpose to enter into a vindication or 
discussion of the measures publickly adopted and avowed by 
the persons against whom the above charge has been made. 
Our sole object is to draw forth all the evidence on which that 
charge is founded, in order that the public may judge of its 
application and its weight. 

We are .Sir, with due respet, your obedient servants, 
H. G. OTIS, CHARLES JACKSON, 

ISRAEL THORNDIKE, WARREN DU FTON, 
T. H. PERKINS, BENJ. PICKMAN, 

WM. PRESCOTT, HENRY CABOT, 

Son of the late George Cabot. 

DANIEL SARGENT, C. C. PARSONS, 

Son of Theophilas Parsons, Esq. dec'd* 

JOHN LOWELL, FRANLLIN DEXTER, 

Son of tlie late Samuel Dexter.- 

WM. SULLIVAN, 



8 MR ADAMS, 

MR. ADAMS' REPLY TO THE PRECEDING LETTEK 

fVashington, 50th December, 1828. 

Messrs H. G. Otis, Israel Thornrlike, T. H. Perkins, William Prescoc; 
Diiniel Sargent, John Lowell, William Sullivan, Charles Jackson, Warrej' 
Diitton, Benjamin Pickman, Heniy Cobot, C. C. Paisons, and Franklio 
Deter— 

Gemxemex, 

I iiave received your letter of the 26th ult. and recogniz- 
ing among the signatures to it, names of persons for whom a 
long and on my part uninterrupted friendship, has survived 
all the bitterness of political dissension, it would have afford- 
ed me pleasure to answer with explicitness and candor not 
only those persons, but each and everyone of you, upon the 
only questions in relation to the subject matter of your letter, 
which as men or as citizens I can acknowledge your right to 
ask; namely whether the interrogator was himself one of the 
persons intended by me in the extract which you have given, 
from a statement authorised by me and published in the Na- 
tional Intelligencer of 21st October last. 

Had you or either of you thought proper to ask me this ques- 
tion, it would have been more satisfactory to me to receive the 
inquiry separately from each individual, than arrayed in solid 
phalanx, each responsible not only for himself but for all the 
others. Tlie reasons for this must be so obvious to persons 
of your intelligence, that I trust you will spare me the pain of 
detailing them. 

But, Gentlemen, this is not all. You undertake your in- 
quisition, not in your own names alone; but as the represen- 
tatives of a great and powerful party, dispersed throughout the 
States of Massachusetts and Maine: A party commanding, at 
the time to which your inquiries refer, a devoted majority in 
the Legislature of the then United Commonwealth; and even 
now, if judged of by the character of its volunteer delegation, 
of great influence and respectability. 

I cannot recognize you, on this occasion, as the representa- 
tives of that party, for two reasons — first, because you have 
neither produced your credentials for presenting yourselves 
as their champions, nor assigned satisfactory reasons for pre- 
senting yourselves without them. But, secondly, and chiefly, 
because your introduction of that party into tliis question is 
entirely gratuitous. Your solemn declaration that you do not 
know that tlie federal or any other party, at the time to which 
my statement refers, intended to produce the dissolution of 
the Union, and the formation of a new confederacy, does not 
take the issue, which your own statement of my charge (as 
you are pleased to consider it) had tended. The statement 
authorised by me, spoke, not of the federal party, but of cer- 
tain leaders of lliat party. In my own letters to the Mem- 
hen of Congress, who did me the honor at that agonizing cri- 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 9 

sis to our National Union, of soliciting my confidential opin- 
ions upon measures under deliberation, I expressly acquitted 
the great body of the federal party, not only of participating 
in the secret designs of those leaders, but even of being privy 
to or believing in their existence. I now cheerfully repeat 
that declaration. I well know that the parly were not pre- 
pared for that convulsion, to which the measures and designs 
of their leaders were instigating them; and my extreme anx- 
iety for the substitution of the nonintercourse for the embargo 
arose from the eminent danger, that the continuance and 
enforcement of this latter measure would promote the views 
of those leaders, by goading a majority of the people and of 
the legislature to the pitch of physical resistance, by State 
authority, against the execution of the laws of the Union; 
the only eftectual means by which the Union could be dissol- 
ved. Your modesty has prompted you to disclaim the char- 
acter of leaders of the federal party at that time. If I am to 
consider this as more than a more disavowal of form, I must 
say that the charge, which I lament to see has excited so much 
of your sensibility, had no reference to any of you. 

Your avowed object is controversy. You call for a precise 
state ot facts and evidence; not affecting, so far as you know, 
any one of you, but to enable you fairly to meet and to answer it. 

And you demand, 

1. Who are the persons designated as leaders of the party 
prevailing in Massachusetts in the year 1808, whose object I 
assert was, and had been, for several years, a dissolution of the 
Union, and the establishment of a separate confederacy? and 

2. The whole evidence, on which that charge is founded. 
You observe that it is admitted, in the statement of the 

charge, that it is not proveable in a court of law, and your in- 
ference is, that I am of course not in possession of any legal 
evidence, by which to maintain it. Yet you call upon me to 
name the persons affected by the charge; a charge in your 
estimate deeply stigmatising upon those persons; and you per- 
mit yourselves to remind me, that my sense of justice and 
self-respect oblige me to disclose all that I do possess. My 
sense of justice to you. Gentlemen, induces me to remark, 
that I leave your self-respect to the moral influences of your 
own minds, without presuming to measure it by the dictatioo 
of mine. 

Suppose, then, that in compliance with your call, I should 
name one, two, or three persons as intended to be included 
in the charge. Suppose neither of those persons to be one of 
you. You however have given them notice, that 1 have no 
evidence against them, by which the charge is proveable in a 
court of law — and you know that I, as well as yourselves, am 
amenable to the laws of the land. Does your self-respect con- 



^0 MR ADAMS, 

\inceyou that the persons so named, ifguiltj, would furnish 
the evidence against themselves, which they have been notifi- 
ed that I do not possess? Are you sure that the correspon- 
dence, which would prove their guilt, may not in the lapse 
of twenty-five years have been committed to the flames? In 
these days of failing and of treaciierous memories, may they 
not have forgotten that any such correspondence ever existed? 
And have you any gurantee to offer, that I should not be 
called by a summons more imperative than yours, to produce 
in the temple of justice the proof, which you say I have not, 
or be branded for a foul and malignant slanderer of spotless 
and persecuted virtue? Is it not besides imaginable that per- 
sons may exist, who though twenty-five years since driven in 
the desperation of disaj)pointment, to the meditation and pre- 
paration of measures tending to the dissolution of the Union, 
perceived afterwards the error of their ways, and would now 
gladly wash out from their own memories their participation 
in projects, upon which the stamp of indelible reprobation has 
past? Is it not possible that some of the conspirators have 
been called to account before a higlier than an earthly tribu- 
nal for all the good and evil of their lives; and whose reputa- 
tions might now suffer needlessly by the di^clousure of their 
names? I put these cas-es to you, Gentlemen, as possible, to 
show you that neither my sense of justice nor my self-respect 
does require of me to produce the evidence for which you call, 
or to disclose the names of persons, for whom you h we and 
can have no riglit to speak. 

These consideratior.s appear indeed to me so forcible, that it 
is not without surprise, that I am compelled to believe they had 
escaped your observation. I cannot believe of any of you that 
which 1 am sure never entered the hearts of some of you, that 
you shouhl have selected the present moment, for the purpose 
of drawing me into a controversy not only with yourselves, 
but with others, you know not whom— of daring me to (he 
denouncement of names, which twenty years since I declined 
commicting to the ear of confidential friendship ; and to the 
production of evidence wliich, though perfectly saii^sfactory to 
njy own mind, and perfecll> competent for the foundation of 
Imnest and palrioiic public conduct, was adecjuale in a court 
of law neither to the conviction of the guilty, nor to tlie jus- 
tification of the accuser, and so explicitly pronounced bv my- 
self. 

You say that you have no design nor wish to produce an 
efliict on any political party or cpieslion whatever — nor to en- 
ter into a vindication of the measures publicly adopted and 
avv)wed by the persons, against whom the above charge has 
been made. But can you believe that this subject could be 
discussed between you and me, as you propose, when calling 
upon me for a statenient, with the avowed intention of refut- 



KND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 11 

iTi"- it, anil not produce an eftect on any political party or 
question? With regard to public measures of those times 
and the succeeding, which you declare to have had your sanc- 
tion and approbation, it needs no disclosure now, that a radi- 
cal and irreconcileable difference of opinion between most of 
yourselves and me existed. And can you suppose that in dis- 
closing names and stating facts, known perhaps only to my- 
self, I could consent to separate them from those public mea- 
sures, which you so cordially approved and which I so deeply 
lamented? Must your own deience against these charges for- 
ever rest exclusively upon a solemn protestation against the 
natural inference from the irresistible tendency of action to 
the secret intent of the actor? That a statesman who believes 
in human virtue should be slow to draw this inference against 
such solemn asservations, I readily admit : but for the regu- 
lation of the conduct of human life, the rules of evidence are 
widely dill'erent from those, which receive or exclude testi- 
mony in court of law. Even there, you know, that violent pre- 
sumption is equivalent, in cases hftecting life itself, to posi- 
tive proof; and in a succession of political measures through 
a series of years, all tending to the same result, there is an 
internal evidence, against which mere denial, however so- 
lemn, can scarcely claim the credence even of the charity, 
that believeth all things. 

Jjet me add that the statement authorized by me, as pub- 
lislied in the National Intelligencer, was made, not only 
without the intention, but without the most distant imagina- 
tion of offending you or injuring any one of you. But, on 
the contrary, for the purpose of expressly disavowing a charge, 
which was before the public, sanctioned witli the name of the 
lare Mr Jefferson, imputing to certain citizens of Massachu- 
setts treasonable negotiations with the British government 
during the war^ and expressly stating that he had recived in- 
formation of this FROM ME. On the publication of this letter, 
I deemed it indispensably due to myself, and to all the citi- 
zens of Massachusetts, not only to de y having ever given 
such information, but all knowledge of such a fact. And the 
more so, because tliat letter had vt ' nublisheil, though with- 
out my knowledge, yet I was well assured, from motives .of 
justice and kindness to me. It contained a declaration by 
Mr Jefferson hin self, frank, explicit, anil true, of the charac- 
ter of the motives of my conduct, in all transactions of my in- 
tercourse with him, during the period of the embargo. T his 
was a point upon which his memory could not deceive 
him, a point upon which he was the best of witnesses; and his 
testimuuy was the more deci.-ive because given at a moment, 
gs it would seem, of great excitement against me upondiffer- 
ant views of public policy even then in conflict and producing 
ereat exacerbation in his mind. The letter contained also a 



1 2 MR ADAMS, 

narrative of a personal interview between himself and me, in 
March, 1808, and stated that I had then given him informa- 
tion of facts, which induced him to consent to the substitu- 
tion of the nonintercourse for the embargo; and also that I 
had apprized him of this treasonable negotiation by citizens 
of Massachusetts, to secede from the Union during the war, 
and perhaps rejoin after the peace. Now the substitution of 
the nonintercourse for the embargo, took place twelve months 
after this interview, and at a succeeding session of Congress, 
when I was not even a member of that body. The negotia- 
tion for seceding from the Union m ith a view to rejoin it after- 
wards, if it ever existed, must have been during the war. I 
had no knowledge of such negotiation, or even of such a de- 
sign. I could therefore have given no such information. 

But in giving an unqualitied denial to this statement of Mr 
Jefferson, and in showing that upon the face of the letter itself 
it could not be correct, it was due to him to show, that the mis- 
statement on his part was n ot intentional; that it arose from an 
infirmity of memory, which the letter itself candidly acknow- 
ledged; that it blended together in one distinct mass, the in- 
formation which I had given him in March, 1808, with the 
purport of confidential letters, which I had written to his and 
r^.y friends in Congress a year after, and with events, projects, 
and perhaps mere suspicions, natural enough as consequen- 
ces of the preceding times, but which occurred, if at all from 
three to six years later, and of which he could not have had 
information from me. The simple fact of which I apprized 
Mr. Jefferson was, that, in the summer of 1807, about the time 
of what was sometimes called the (ij/ltir of the Leopard and 
the Chesepeake, I had seen a letter from the governor of Nova 
Scotia to a person in Massachusetts, affirming that the British 
government had certain information of apian by that of France, 
to conquer the British possessions and effect a revolution in 
the United States, by means of a war between them and Great 
Britain. As the United States and Great Britain were in 
1 807 at peace, a correspondence with the governor of Nova 
Scotia, held by any citizen of the United States, imported no 
violation of law; nor could the correspondent be responsible 
for any thing which the governor might write. But my infer- 
ences from this fact were, that there cxistt^d between the Bri- 
tish government and the party in Massachusetts opposed to 
Mr Jelferson, a channel of communication through the gover- 
nor of Nova Scotia, which he was exercising to inflame their 
hatred against France and their jealousies against their own 
government. The letter was not to any leader of the federal 
party; but I had no doubt it had been shown to some of them, 
as it had been to me, without injunction of secrecy; and, as 
1 supposed, with a view to convince me that this conspiracy 
Zjctween Napoleon and Mr Jefferson really existed. How that 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. J^ 

channel of communication might be further used, was mattw 
of conjecture; for the mission of Mr John Henry was nine 
months after m_y interview with Mr Jefferson, and precisely at 
the time when I was writing to my friends in Congress the 
letters urging the substitution of the non intercourse for the 
embargo. Of Mr Henry's mission I knew nothing till it was 
disclosed by himself in 1812. 

It was in these letters of 1808 and 1809, that I mentioned 
the design of certain leaders of the federal party to effect a 
dissolution of the Union, and the establishment of a Nor- 
thern Confederacy. This design had been formed, in the 
wintf'r of 1803 — 4, immediately after; and as a consequence 
of the acquisition of Louisiana. Its justifying causes to those 
who entertained it were, that the annexation of Louisiana to 
the Union traj.'scended the constitutional powers of the go- 
vernment of the United States. That it formed in fact a new 
confederacy to which the States, united by the former com- 
pact, were not bound to adhere. That it was oppressive to 
the interests and destructive to the influence of the Northern 
section of the confederacy, whose right and duty it therefore 
was to secede from the new body politic, and to constitute 
one of their own. This plan was so far matured, that the pro- 
posal had been made to an individual to permit himself, at 
the proper time, to be placed at the head of the military 
movements, which it was foreseen would be necessary for car- 
rying it into execution. In all this there was no aver tact of 
treason. In the abstract theory of our government the obedi- 
ence of the citizen is not due to an unconstitutional law. — 
He may lawfully resist its execution. If a single individual 
undertakes this resistance, our constitutions, both of the Uni- 
ted States and of each separate State, have provided a judi- 
ciary power, judges and juries, to decide between the indi- 
vidual and the legislative act, which he has resisted as uncon- 
stitutional. But let us suppose the case that legislative acts 
of one or more States of this Union are past, conflicting with 
acts of Congress, and commanding the resistance of their 
citizens against them, and what else can be the result but 
War; — civil war? and is not that, de facto, a dissolution of 
the Union, so far .'ts the resisting States are concerned.^ and 
what would be the condition of every citizen in the resisting 
States? Bound by the double duty of allegiance to the Union, 
and the State, he would be crushed between the upper and 
the nether millstone, with the performance of every civic 
duty converted into a crime, and guilty of treason, by every 
act of obedience to the law. 

That the power of annexing Louisiana to this Union had 
not been delegated to Congress, by the constitution of the 
United States, was my opinion; and it is recorded upon 
the journals of the senate, of which I was then a member — 



r4 MR ADAMS, 

But far from thinking the act itself a justifying cause for se- 
cession from the Union, I regarded it as one of the happiest 
events, which had occurred since the adoption of ihe consti- 
tution. I regretted that an accidental illness in my family, 
which detained me on my way to Washington to take my seat 
in the senate, deprived me of the power of voting for the ra- 
tification of the treaties, by which the cession was secured. 
I arrived at Washington on the fourtli day of the session of 
Congress, and on entering the city, passed by the secretary 
of the senate, who was going from the capital to the presi- 
dent's house, with the advice and consent of that body to the 
ratification. 

1 took my seat in the senate the next day. Bills were im- 
mediately brought into Congress making appropriations to the 
amount of fifteen millions of dollars for carrying the conven- 
tion into eilect, and for enabling the president to take posses- 
sion of the ceded territory. These measures were opposed 
by all the members of the senate, who had voted against the 
ratifications of the conventions. They were warmly and 
cordially supported by me. I had no doubt of the constitu- 
tional power to make the treaties. It is expressly delegated 
in the constitution. The power of making tlie stipulated pay- 
ment for the cession, and of taking possession of the ceded 
territory, was equally unquestioned by me; — they were con- 
structive powers, but I thought them fairly incidental, and 
necessarily consequent upon the power to make the treaty. — 
But the power of annexing the inhabitants of Louisiana to 
the Union, of conferring upon them, in a mass, all the rights, 
and requiring of tiiem all the duties, of citizens of the Uni- 
ted States, it apjjeared to me iiad not been delegated to Con- 
gress by the people of the Union, and could not have been 
delegated by them, witliout the consent of tlie people of Lou- 
isiana tlieniselves. I thought they recjuired an amendn)ent 
to the constitution, and a vote of the people of J^nuisiana? and 
I offered to the senate, resolutions for carrying both those 
measures into ettect, which were rejected. 

It has been recently ascertained, by a letter from Mr Jef^ 
ferson to Mr Dunbar, written in July 1803, after he had re- 
ceived the treaties, and convened Congress to consider them, 
that, in his opinion, the treaties could not be carried into ef- 
fect without an amendment to the constitution: and that the 
proposal for such an amendment would be the first measure 
adopted by them, at their tiieeling. Yet Mr Jefferson, presi- 
dent of the I'nited States, did a[)prove the acts of Congress, 
assuming the power which he had so recently thought not 
delegated to them, and, as the Executive of the Union, car- 
ried them into execution. 

Thus M^-. JettersoD, President of the United States, the 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 15 

federal members of Congress, who opposed and voted against 
the ratification of the treaties, and myself, all concurred in 
the opinion, that the Louisiana cession treaties transcended 
the constitutional powers of the government of the United 
States. But it was, after all, a question of constructive pow- 
er. The power of making the treaty was expressly giveti 
without limitation. The sweeping clause, by which all pow- 
ers, necessary and proper for carrying into effect those ex- 
pressly delegated, may be understood as unlimited. It is to 
be presumed, that when Mr Jefferson approved and executed 
the acts of Congress, assuming the doubtful power, he had 
brought his mind to acquiesce in this somewhat latitudinarian 
consn-uction. I opposed it as long and as far as my opposi- 
tion could avail. I acquiesced in it, after it bad received the 
sanction of all the organixed authority of the Union, and the 
tacit acquiescence of the people of the United States and of 
Louisiana. Since which time, so far as this precedent goes, 
and no farther, I have considered the question as irrevocably- 
settled. 

But, in reverting to the fundamental principle of all our 
constitutions, that obedience is not due to an unconstitutional . 
law, and that its execution may be lawfully resisted, you must 
admit, that had the laws of Congress for annexing Louisiana 
to the 'Union been resisted, by the authority of one or more 
States of the then existing confederacy, as 'unconstitutional.. 
that resistance might have been carried to the evtent of dis- 
solving the Union, and of fornii.>g a new confederacy; and 
that if the consequences of the cession had been so oppressive 
upon New England and the North, as was apprehended by the 
federal leaders, to whose conduct at that lime all these obser- 
vations refer, the project which they did then form of sever- 
ing the Union, and establishing a Northern Confederacy 
would in their application of the abstract principle to the exis- 
ting state of things have been justifiable. In their views, 
therefore, I impute to them nothing which it could be neces- 
sary for them to disavow; and, accordingly, these principdes 
Miere distinctly and explicitly avowed, eight years afterwards,, 
by my excellent friend, Mr Quincy, in his speech upon the 
admission of Louisiana, as a State, into the Union. AVhether 
he had any knowledge of the practical project of 1803 and 4,. 
I, know not; but the argument of his speech, in which he re- 
ferred to my recorded opinions upon the constitutional power, 
\^s an eloquent exposition of the justifying causes of that 
project, as 1 had heard them detailed at the time. That 
project, I repeat,. had gone to the length of fixing upon a mili-- 
tary leader for its execution; and although the circumstances 
of the times never admitted of its execution, nor even of its 
full developement, I had yet no doubt, in 1S08 and 1809, and 



IB MR ADAMS, 

have no doubt at this time, that it is the key to all the o-reat 
movements of these leaders of the federal party in New 
England, from that time forward, till its final catastrophe in 
the Hartford Convention. 

Gentlemen, I observe among the signers of your letter, the 
names of tvvo members of that Convention, together with that 
of the son of its president You will not understand me as 
affirming, that either of you was privy to this plan of military 
execution, in 1804. That may be known to yourselves and 
not to me. A letter of your first signer, recently published, 
has disclosed the fact, that he, although the putative was not 
the real father of the Hartford Convention. As he, who has 
hitherto enjoyed unrivaled, the honors, is now disposed to 
bestow upon others the shame of its paternity, may not the 
ostensible ami the real character or other incidents attending 
it, be alike diversified, so that the main and ultimate object of 
that assembly, though beaming in splendor from its acts, was 
jet in dim eclipse to the vision of its most distingui«hed mem- 
bers? 

However this may be, it was this project of 1803 and 4, 
which, from the time when I first took my seat in the Senate, 
of the United States, alienated me from the secret councils of 
those leaders of the federal party. I was never initiated in 
them. I approved and supported the acquisition of Louis- 
iana; and from the first moment that the project of separation 
■was made known to me, I opposed to it a determined and in- 
flexible resistance. 

It is well known to some of you, Gentlemen, that the ces- 
sion of Louisiana was not the first occasion upon which my 
duty to my country prescribed to me a course of conduct dif- 
ferent from that which would have been dictated to me by 
the leaders and the spirit of party. More than one of you 
was present at a meeting of members of the Massachusetts 
Legislature on the 2Tlh May, 1802, the day after I first 
took my seat as a member of that legislature. A proposal 
then made by me, to admit to the council of the Common- 
wealth, a proportional representation of the minority as it ex- 
isted in the two houses, has, I trust, not been forgotten. It 
was the first act of my legislative life, and it marked the prin- 
ciple by which my whole public career has been governed 
from that day to this. My proposal was unsuccessful, and 
perhaps it forfeited whatever confidence might have been 
otherwise bestowed upon me as a party follower. My con- 
duct in tlie senate of the United States, with regard to the 
Louisiana cession, was not more acceptable to the leaders of 
the federal party, and some of you may perhaps remember 
that it was not suffered to pass without notice or censure, in 
the public federal journals of tlie time. 

With regard to the project of a separate Northern Confedc- 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. ' 17 

racy, formed in the winter of 1803 and 4, in consequence of 
the Louisiana cession, it is not to me that you must apply for 
copies of the correspondence in which it was contained. To 
that and to every other project of disunion, I have been con- 
stantly opposed. My principles do not admit the right even 
of the people, still less of the legislature of any one State of 
the Union, to secede at pleasure from the Union. No provi- 
sion is made for the exercise of this right, either by the fede- 
ral or any of the State constitutions. The act of exercising 
it, presupposes a departure from the principle of compact and 
a resort to that of force. 

If, in the exercise of their respective functions, the legisla- 
tive, executive, and judicial authorities of the Union on one 
side, and of one or more States on the other, are brought into 
direct collision with each other, the relations between the 
parties are no longer those of constitutional right, but of in- 
dependent force. Each party construes the common compact 
for itself. The constructions are irreconcileable together. 
There is no umpire between them, and the appeal is to the 
sword, the ultimate arbiter of right between independent 
States, but not between the members of one body politic. I 
therefore hold it as a principle without exception, that when- 
ever the continued authorities of a State authorize resistance 
to any act of Congress, or pronounce it unconstitutional, they 
do thereby declare themselves and their State quoad hoc out 
of the pale of the Union. That there is no supposable case, 
in which the people of a State might place themselves in this 
* attitude, by the primitive right of insurrection against oppres- 
sion, I will not affirm: but they have delegated no such pow- 
er to their legislatures or their judges; and if there be such a 
right, it is the right of an individual to commit suicide — the 
right of an inhabitant of a populous city to set fire to his own 
dwelling house. These are my views. But to those who 
think that each State is a sovereign judge, not only of its own 
rights, but of the extent of powers conferred upon the gene- 
ral government by the people of the whole Union; and that 
each State, giving its own construction to the constitutional 
powers of Congress, may array its separate sovereignty against 
every act of that body transcending this estimate of their 
powers — to say of men holding these principles, that, for the 
ten years from 1804 to 1814, they were intending a dissolu- 
tion of the Union, and the formation of a new Confederacy, 
is charging theui with nothing more than with acting up to 
their principles. 

To the purposes of party leaders, intending to accomplish 
the dissolution of the Union and a new Confederacy, two pos- 
tulates are necessary. First, an act or acts of Congress, 
2 



18 MR ADAMS, 

which may be resisted as tmcons/z7w/iono^; and, secondly,. «. 
state of excitement among the people of one or more States of 
the Union sufficiently inflamed, to produce acts of the State 
legislatures, conflicting with the acts of Congress. Resolu- 
tions of the legislatures denying the powers of Congress, are 
the first steps in this march to disunion: but they avail nothing 
•without subsequent and corresponding action. The annexa- 
tion of Louisiana to the Union was believed to be unconstitu- 
tional, but it produced no excitement to resistance among the 
people. Its beneficial consequences to the whole Union were 
soon felt, and took away all possibility of holding it up as the 
labarum of a political religion of disunion. The projected 
separation met with other disasters, and slumbered till the 
attacK of the Leopard on the Chesapeake, followed by the 
orders in Cou!icil of 1 1th November, 1807, led to the embar- 
go of the 22d December of that year. Tlie first of these events 
brought the nation to the brink of war with Great Britainj 
and there is good reason to believe that the second was in- 
tended as a measure familiar to the policy of that government, 
to sweep our commerce from the ocean, carrying into British 
ports every vessel of ours navigating upon the seas, and hold- 
ing them, their cargoes, and their crews, in sequestration, to 
aid in the negotiation of Mr Rose, and bring us to the terms 
of the British cabinet. This was precisely the period at 
which the governor of Nova Scotia was giving to his his corres- 
pondent in Massachusetts, the friendly warning from the Bri- 
tish government of the revolutionizing and conquering plan 
of France, which was communicated to me, and of which I 
apprized Mr Jefterson. The enibargo, in the mean time, had 
been laid, and hud saved most of our vessels and seamen from 
the grasp of the British cruizcrs. It had rendered impotent 
ihf! British orders in Council; but, at the same time, it had 
choaked up the channels of our own commerce. As its ope- 
ration bore with heavy pressure upon the commerce and navi- 
gation of the North, the federal leaders soon began to clamor 
against it; then to denounce it as unconstitutional; and then 
!.o call upon the Commercial Slates to concert measures 
among th^Miiselves to resist its execution. The question 
made of the constitutionality of the embargo only proved 
that, in times of violent popular excitement, the clearest dele- 
gation of a power in (.'oiigress will no more shield the exercise 
of it from a charge of usurpation, than that of a power the 
most remotely implied or constructive. The question of the 
constitutionality of the embargo was solemnly argued before 
the District Court of the United States at Salem; and ahho' 
'he decision of the Judg(^ was in its favor, it continued to be 
argued to th? juries; a'.d even when silenced before them, 
^vas, in the distemper of the times, so infectious, that the ju- 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 19 

ries themselves habitually acquitted those charged with the vi- 
olation of that law. There was little doubt, that if the question 
of constitutionality had been brought before the State judi- 
ciary of Massachusetts, the decision of the court would have 
been against the law. The lirst postulate for the projectors 
of disunion was thus secured. The second still lingered; for 
the people, notwithstanding their excitement, still clung to 
the Union, and the federal majority in the legislature was 
very small. Then was brought forward the first project for 
a Convention of Delegates from the New England States to 
meet in Connecticut, and then was the time at which I urged, 
with so much earnestness, by letters to my friends at Wash- 
ington, the substitution of the non-intercourse for the embargo. 

The non-intercourse was substituted. The arrangement 
with Mr Erskine soon afterwards ensued; and in August, 
1809, I embarked upon a public mission to Russia. My ab- 
sence from the United States was of eight years' duration, 
and I returned to take charge of the Department df State in 
1817. 

The rupture of Mr Erskine's arrangement, the abortive 
missionof Mr Jackson, the disclosures of Mr John Henrv, the 
war with Great Britain, the opinion of the judges of tiie Su- 
preme Court of Massachusetts, that by the constitution of the 
United States, no power was given either to the President or 
to Congress to determine the actual existence of the exigen- 
cies upon which the militia of the several States may be em- 
plojed in the service of the United States, and the Hartford 
Convention, all happened during my absence from this coun- 
try. I forbear to pursue the narrative. The two postulates 
for disunion were nearly consummated. The interposition 
of a kind Providence, restoring peace to our country and to 
the world, averted the most deplorable of catastrophes, and 
turning over to the receptacle of things lost upon earth, the 
adjourned Convention from Hariford to Boston, extinguished 
(by the mercy of Heaven, may it be foreverl) the projected 
New England Confederacy. 

Gentlt^men, 1 have waved every scruple, perhaps even the. 
proprieties of my situation, to give you this answer, in consi- 
tl'^ration of that long ai;d sincere friendship ht some of you. 
wiiich can cease to beat only with the last puliation of" ray 
heart. But 1 cr.nnot consent to a controversy wirh you.~ 
Here, if you please, let our J obit correspondence rest. I will 
ati^wer fur the public eye, or for the private ear. at bis option, 
ci her of y(.u, speaking for himself, upon any question which 
he may justly deem necessary, for the vindication of his nv/n 
reputation. But I can recognise among y(»i.' no representa- 
tive characters. Justly appreciating the "tili.il piety of thosf 
vbohave signed your letter in behalf of their deceased sires. 1 



20 MR ADAMS, 

have no reason to believe that either of those parents would 
have authorized the demand of names, or the call for evidence 
which you have made. With the fatlier of your last signer, I 
had, in the year 1 809, one or more intimately confidontial 
conversations on this very subject, which I have flattered my- 
self, and still believe, were not without their influence upon 
the conduct of his last and best days. His son may have 
found no traces of this among his father's papers. He may 
believe me that it is nevertheless true. 

It is not improbable that, at some future day, a sense of so- 
lemn duty to my country may require of me to disclose the 
evidence which I do possess, and for which you call. But 
of that day the selection must be at my own judgment, and it 
may be delayed till I myself shall have gone to answer for the 
testimony I may bear, before the tribunal of your God and 
mine. Should a disclosure of names even tlien be made by 
me, it will, if possible, be made with such reserve, as tender- 
ness to the feelings of the living, and to the families and friends 
of +he dead, may admonish. 

But no arrav of numbers or of power shall draw me to a 
disclosure, which I deem premature, or deter me from mak- 
ing it, when my sense of duty shall sound the call. 

In the mean time, with a sentiment of aflectionate and una- 
bated regard for some, and of respect for all of you, permit 
me to subscribe myself, 

Your friend and fellow citizen, 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



APPEAZ. 

TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
The following appeal is made to you, because the charges 
which have rendered it necessary were exhibited by your 
highest public functionary, in a communication designed for 
the eyes of all ; and because the citizens of every State in the 
Union have a deep interest in the reputation of every other 

»St;ite. , , 

It is wt'll known, that, during the embargo, and the suc- 
ceeding; reslriftiuns on our commerce, and also during the 
late vva"t- with (ircat Britain, the Slate of Massachusetts was 
sometimes charged with entertaining designs, dangerous, if 
not hostile, to the Union of the Stales. This calumnv, having 
been en,;endered at a period of extreme political excitement, 
and l)eiiig cimsidered like the thousand others whieh at such 
times art? fabricated by parly annimosity, and which live out 
their day and expire, has liithcrto attracted very little atten- 
tion in this Slate. It stood on the same footing with the charge 
a^aint Hamilton, for peculation j agaiu&t the late Presiden 



AND THE BOSTON FB^DERALISTS. 21 

Adams, as being in favor of monarchy and nobility, and 
against Washington himself, as hostile to France, and devo- 
ted to British interests. Calumnies, which were seldom be- 
lieved by any respectable members of the party wliich circu- 
lated them. 

The publication by the President of the United States, ia 
the National Intelligencer of October last, has given an en- 
tirely new characrer to these charges against the citizens of 
Massachusetts. They can no longer be considered as the an- 
onymous slanders of political partisans ; but as a solemn and 
deliberate impeachment by the first magistrate of the United 
States, and under the responsibility of his name. It appears 
also that this denunciation, though now for the first time made 
known to the public, and to the parties implicated, (whoever 
they may be,) was contained. in private letters of Mr Adams, 
written twenty years ago, to members of the general govern- 
ment ; and that he ventures to state is as founded on unequi- 
vocal evidence within his own knowledge. 

It was impossible for those who had any part in the affairs 
of Massachusetts during the period in question, to suftersuch 
a charge to go forth to the world, and descend to posterity, 
without notice. The high official rank of the accuser, the 
silent, but baneful influence of the original secret denuncia- 
tion, and the deliberate and unprovoked repetition of it in a 
public journal, authorized an appeal to Mr Adams, for a spe- 
cification of the parties and of the evidence, and rendered 
such an appeal absolutely imperative. No higli-minded hon- 
orable man, of any party, or of any State in our confederacy, 
could expect that the memory of illustrious friends deceased, 
or the characters of the living, should be left undefended, 
througli the fear of awakening long extinguished controver- 
sies, or of disturbing Mr Adams' retirement. Men who feel 
a just respect for their own characters, and for public esteem, 
and who have a corresponding sense of what is due to the re- 
putation of others, will admit the right of all who might be 
supposed by the public to be included in Mr Adams' denun- 
ciation, to call upon him to disperse the cloud with which he 
had enveloped tlieir characters. Such persons had a right to 
require that the innocent should not sutler with the guilt\', if 
any such there were ; and that the parties against whom the 
charge was levelled, should have aji opportunity to repel and 
disprove it. Mr Adams had indeed admitted that his allega- 
tions could not be proved in a court of law, and thereby pru- 
dently declined a legal investigation; but the persons impli- 
cated had still a right to know what the evidence was, which 
he professed to consider as ' unequivocal,' in order to exhibit 
it to the tribunal of the public, before which he had arraign^ 
ed them. He had spoken of that evidence as entirely satis- 



22 MR ADAMS, 

factory to him. They had a right to ascertain \vhether it 
Vould be alike satisfactory to impartial, upright, and honora- 
ble men. 

It being determined that this denunciation could not be 
suffered to pass unanswered, some question arose as to the 
mode in which it should be noticed. Should it be by a solemn 
public denial, in the names of all those who came within the 
scope of Mr Adams' accusation, including, as it does, all the 
leaders of the federal party from the year 1803 to 1814? Such 
a course, indeed would serve in Massachusetts, where the 
characters of the parties are known, most fully to countervail 
the charges of Mr. Adams; but this impeachment of their char- 
acter may be heard in difTerent States, and in future times. A 
convention might have been called of all who had beeen mem- 
bers of the federal party in the legislature during those eleven 
years; and a respectable host they would be, in numbers, in- 
telligence, education, talents, and patriotism, yet it might 
then have been said — ' You mean to overpower your accuser 
by numbers; you intend to seize this occasion to revive the 
old and long extinct federal party; your purpose is to oppress 
by popular clamour a falling chief ; you are avenging your- 
selves for this ancient defection from your party: you are con- 
scious of guilt, but you endeavor to diminish the odium of 
it by increasing the number of your accomplices.' These rea- 
sons had great weight; and tjie course adopted after delibera- 
tion appeared to be free from all objection. 

The undersigned, comprising so many of the federal party, 
that Mr Adams should not be at liberty to treat them as un- 
worthy of attention, and yet so few, that he could not charge 
them wi(h arraying a host against him, addressed to him the 
above letter of November 26th. They feel no fear that the 
public will accuse them of presumption in taking upon them- 
selves the task of vindicating the reputation of the federal 
party. The share which some of them had in public affairs 
during the period over which Mr Adams has extended his 
charges and insinuations, and the decided, p(»wevful, and well 
merited influence enjoyed by their illustrious friends, now 
deceased, most assuredly gave to the undersigned a right to 
demand the grounds of the accusation; a right which Mr. 
Adams liimself repeatedly admits might have been justly and 
propel ly exercised by eacii of them severally. Their demand 
was founded on the common principle, recognized alike in the 
code ot honor and of civil jurisprudence, that no man should 
make a charge affecting the right or character of others, 
witliout given them an opportunity of knowing the grounds 
on which it was made, and of disproving it, if untrue. To 
this plain and simple demand the undersigned received the 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALll^TS. 23 

answer contained in the above letter of Mr Adams, dated on 

the 30th of December. 

It will be seen that Mr Acfams altogether ri'fuses to produce 
any evidence in support of his allej^ations. Tiie former part 
of his letter contains his reasons for that refusal; and in the 
other part, he repeats the original charj^es in terms even more 
«)ffonsive tiian before. When addressin* to him our letter, 
we thought we might reasonably expect from his sense of what 
was due to himself, as well as to us, that he would fully dis- 
close all the evidence which he professed to consider so satis- 
factory; and we felt assured, that in that event we should be 
able fully to explain or refute it, or to show that it did not 
aSect any distinguished members of the federal party. And 
if, on the other hand, he should refuse to disclose that evi- 
dence, we trusted that the public would presume, what we 
nnhesitatingly believe, that it was because he had no evidence 
that would bear to be submitted to an impartial and intelligent 
community. Mr Adams has adopted the latter course ; and 
if the reasons that he has assigned for it should appear to be 
unsatisfactory, our tellow-citiz.ens, we doubt not, will join us 
in drawing the above inference. We therefore proceed to an 
examination of those reasons : 

Mr Adams first objects to our making a joint application to 
him; acknowledging the right of each one alone to inquire 
whether he was included in this vague and sweeping denun- 
ciation. It was not easy to see why any one should lose this 
acknowledged right, by uniting with others in the exercise of 
it; nor why this mere change of form should authorize Mr 
Adams to disregard our claim. But there are two objectiont 
to the course which he has condescended to point out, as the 
only one in which he could be approached or, this occasion. 
Any individual who should have applied to him in that mode 
might have been charged with arrogance; and to each of then* 
in turn he might have tauntingly replied, ' that the applicant 
was in no danger of suffering as one yf the " leaders" in Mas- 
sachusetts, and had no occasion to exculpate himself from a 
charge conveyed in the terms used by Mr Adams.' The other 
objection is still more decisive. After allowing tliis de- 
nunciation all the weight that it can be supposed to derive 
from the personal or official character of the accuser, we trust 
there are few citizens of Massachusetts who would be content 
to owe their political reputation to his estimation of it, and 
condescend to solicit his certificate to acquit them of the sub- 
picion of treasonable practices. 

Mr Adams next objects, that we make our application as 
the representatives of a great and powerful party, which, at 
the time referred to, commanded, as he says, a devoted ma- 
jority in the legislature of the Commonwealth^ and he denies 



24 MR ADAMS, 

our right to represent tliat party. We have already stated the 
objetiions to a joint application by all, who nii^litbe included 
in this denunciation, and to a separate inquiry by each indi- 
vidual; and some of the reasons which we thouj!,ht, justified 
the Course which we have pursued. We certainly did not ar- 
rogate to ourselves the title of 'leaders;' and Mr Adams may 
enjoy, undisturbed, all the advantage which that circumstance 
can give him in this controversy. But we freely avowed such 
a close political connexion with all who could probably have 
been included under that appellation, as to render us respon- 
sible for all their political measures that were known to us; 
and we, therefore, must have been either their dupes, or the 
associates in their guilt. In either case, we were interested, 
and, as we apprehend, entitled, to make this demand of Mr 
Adams. 

As to the suggestion, that he sprke only of 'certain leaders,* 
of tlie federal party, and not of the party itself; we certainly 
intended to deny our knowledge and belief that any such plot 
had been contrived by any party whatever in this State; and 
it is exjilicitly so stated in our letter. This language would 
include any number, whether large or small, who might be 
supposed to have leagued together, for the purpose suggested 
by Mr Adams. There seems, therefore, to be but little ground 
for this technical objection, that we do not take the issue ten- 
dered by his chaige. 

But we wish to examine a little further this distinction which 
Mr Ailams relies upon, between a political party and its lead- 
ers. From the nature of representative government, itresults 
that, in conducting the business of their legislative and popu- 
lar assemblies, some individuals will be found to take a more 
active and conspicuous part than the rest, and will be regard- 
ed as essentially influencing public opinion, whilst they are 
generally themselves merely impelled by its force. But this 
influence, in whatever degree it may exist, is temporary, and 
is possessed by a constant succession of diflerent persons. — 
Those who possess it for the time being, are called leaders^ 
and, in the course of ten years, they must amount to a very 
numerous class. Their measures and political objects must 
necessarily be identified with those of their whole party. — 
To deny this, is to pronounce sentence of condemnation upon 
j)opular government. For, admitting it to be true, that the 
people may be occasionally sui prised and misled by those who 
abuse their confidence into measures repugnant to their inter- 
ests and duty, still, if the majority of them can, for ten years 
togethei-, be duped, and led hoodwinked to the very preci- 
pice of treason, by their perfidious guides, 'without partici- 
pating in their secret designs, or being privy to their exist- 
ence,' they show themselves unlit for self-government. It is 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS 25 

not conceivable, that the federal party, which, at that time, 
constituted the great majority of Massachusetts, will feel 
themselves indebted to the president of the United States, for 
a compliment paid to their loyalty, at the expense of their 
character for intelligence and independence. 

It is in the above sense only, that a free people can recog- 
nize any individuals as leaders; and in this sense, every 
man, who is conscious of having enjoyed influence and con- 
sideration with his party, may well deem himself included in 
every approbrious and indiscriminate impeachment of the mo- 
tives of the leaders of that part}. But it would be arrogance 
to suppose himself alone intended, when the terms ot]the ac- 
cusation imply a confederacy of many. And while, on the 
one hand, it would betray both selfishness and egotism to 
confine his demand of exculpation to himself; so, on the other, 
it is impossible to unite in one application a// who might just- 
ly be considered as his associates. It follows then that any 
persons, who, from the relations they sustained to their party, 
Ijiay apprehend that the public will apply to them charges of 
this vague description, mayjoin in sucii numbers as they shall 
think fit, to demand an explanation of charges, which will 
probably aftcct some of them, and may affect them all. The 
right, upon the immutable principles of justice, is commensu- 
rate with the injury, and should be adapted to its character. 

Again, who can doubt that the public reputation of high 
minded men who have embarked in the same cause and main- 
tained a communion of principles, is a common property, 
which all who are interested are bound to vindicate as occa- 
sion may require — the present for the absent^the living for 
the dead — the son for the father. 

If any responsible individual at Washington should declare 
himself to be in possession of unequivocal evidence, tliat the 
leaders of certain states in our confederacy, were now matur- 
ing a plot for the separation of the States, might not the 
members of Congress, now there, from the States thus accu- 
sed, insist upon a disclosure of evidence and names? Would 
they be diverted from their purpose by an evasion of the ques- 
tion, on the ground, that as the libeller had not named any 
individuals, so there was no one entitled to make this de- 
mand? or would they be satisfied with a misty exculpation of 
themselves? This cannot be imagined. They would contend 
for the honor of their absent friends, of their party, and of 
their States. These were among our motives for making this 
call. We feel an interest in ail these particulars, and espe- 
cially in the unsullied good name of friends and associates, 
who, venerable for eminent talents, virtues and public servi- 
ces, have gone down to the grave unconscious of any impu 
tation on their characters. 



56 MR ADAMS, 

Mr Adams admits our right to make severally, the inquiries 
which liave been made jointly; though in a passage eminent 
for its equivocation, he expresses a doubt Avhother we can 
come within the terms of his charges. On tltis remarkable 
passage we submit one more observation. As Mr Adams de- 
clares that he well knew from unequivocal evidence the exis< 
fence of such treasonable designs, he must have known, whe- 
ther the parties who addressed him were engaged in those de- 
signs. Why then resort to the extraordinary subterfuge, that 
if the signers of that letter were 7iot leaders, then the charges 
did not refer to them? 

There is then no right on the part of Mr Adams to prescribe 
to the injured parties, (and all are injured wlio may be com- 
prehended in his vague expressions) the precise form in which 
they should make their demand. And his refusal to answer 
that which we have made, is like that of one who having tired a 
random shot among a crowd, should protest against answering 
to the complaint of any whom he had actually wounded, be- 
cause they could not prove that his aim was directed at them. 

Anotiier reason assigned by Mr Adams for his refusid to 
name the individuals whom he intended to accuse, is that it 
might expose him to a legal prosecution. He certainly had 
not much to apprehend in this respect from any of the under- 
signed. As he had originally announced that he had no legal 
evidence to prove his charge, and the undersigned had ne- 
vertheless called on him to produce such as he did possess, 
he muat have been sufficiently assured that their purpose was 
not to resort to a court of justice, but to the tribunal of public 
opinion; and that they liad virtually precluded themselves 
from any other resort. 

Mr Adams suggests another objection to naming the parties 
accused, on account of the probable loss of evidence, and the 
forgetfulness of witnesses, after the lapse of twenty years. 

He undoubtedly now possesses all the evidence that he had 
in October last, when he published his statement. If he then 
made this grave charge against certain of his fellow-citizons, 
with the knowledge that {here was no evidence by v\hich it 
could be substantiated, wiiere was his sense of justice? If he 
made it without regarding, whether he had any such evidence 
or not, intending if called upon to shield himself from respon- 
sibility by suggesting this loss of documents and proofs, where 
was then his self-respect? 

Hut did it never occur to Mr Adams, that the parties accus- 
ed might also in this long lapse of time li.ive lost the proofs of 
their innocence? He has known for twenty years pas! (hat he 
had made his secret denunciation of his ancient political friends: 
and he must have anticipated the possiljility that it might at 
some time be made public, if he had nut even determined in 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 27 

Ms own mind to publish it himself. He has therefore had 
ample opportunity, and the most powerful motives, to preserve 
all the evidence that might serve to justify his conduct on that 
occasion. On the other hand, the. parties accused, and espe- 
cially those venerable patriots who during this long interval 
have descended to the grave, unconscious of guilty and igno- 
rant that they tvere even suspected, have foreseen no necessity , 
and had no motive whatever^ to preserve any memorials of their 
Innocence. We venture to make this appeal to the conscience 
of Mr Adams himself. 

Mr Adams in one passage appeals to the feelings of the un- 
dersigned, and intimates his surprise that they should have 
selected the present moment for making their demand. He 
did them but justice in supposing that this consideration had 
its influence on their minds. Their only fear was that their 
appeal might be considered as an attack on an eminent man, 
whom the public favor seemed to have deserted. But the 
undersigned had no choice. Their accuser had selected his 
own time for bringing- this subjoct before the world; and thej 
were compelled to follow him v<ith their defence, or cnsent 
that the seal should be set (m their own reputations, and on 
those of their deceased friends forever. We said with truth, 
that it was not our design nor wish to produce an effect ok 
any political party or question. We were not unaware that 
our appeal might lead to such measures as would seriously af- 
fect either Mr Adams or ourselves in the public opinion. But 
wliilst we did not wish for any such result, so neither were 
we disposed to shrink from it. 

The necess.ity of correcting some mistakes in a letter of 
Mr Jefferson, which had been latele published, is assigned bj 
Mr Adams as the reason foi his publication. If that circum- 
stance has brtmght him before the public at a time, or in a 
manner, injurious to his feelings, or unpropitious to his poli- 
tical views and expectations, we are not responsible for the 
consequences. We would observe, however, that it would 
have been apparently a very easy task to correct those mis- 
takes, without adding this unprovoked denunciation against 
his native State. 

Finally, Mi' Adams declines all further correspondence 
with us on this su'yect; and even intimates an apprehoasion 
that he may have already condescended too far, and waved 
' even the proprieties of his situation,' in giving us such an 
answer as he has given. 

He very much misapprehends the character of our institu- 
tions, and the principles and spirit of his countrymen, if he 
imagines that any official rank, however elevated, will author- 
ise a man to publish injurious charges against others, and then 
to refuse all reparation and even explanation, lest it would 



28 MR ADAMS, 

tend to impair his dig;nity. If he is in any danger of such e 
result in the present instance, he should have foreseen it when 
about to publish his charges, in October last. If ' the pro- 
prieties of his situation' have been violated, it was by that 
original publication, and not by too great condescension in 
answer to our call upon him, for an act of simple justice to- 
wards those who felt themselves aggrieved. 

We have thus examined all the reasons by which Mr Adams 
attempts to justify his refusal to produce the evidence in sup- 
port of his allegations; and we again appeal with confidence 
to our fellow citizens throughout the United States, for the 
justice of our conclusion, that no such evidence exists. 

The preceding observations suffice, we trust, to shew, that 
we have been reluctantly forced into a controversy, which 
could not be shunned, without the most abject degradation? 
that it was competent to us to interrogate Mr Adams, in the 
mode adopted, and that he declines a direct answer for rea- 
sons insufficient, and unsatisfactory; thus placing himself in 
the predicament of an unjust accuser. 

Here, perhaps, we might safely rest our appeal, on the 
ground that it is impossible strictly to prove a negative. But 
though we are in the dark ourselves, with respect to the evi- 
dence on which he relies, to justify his allegation of a ' pro- 
ject,' at any time, to dissolve the Union, and establish a north- 
ern confederacy, (which is the only point to which our inqui- 
ries were directed,) it will be easy by a comparison of dates, 
and circumstances, founded on his own admission, to demon- 
strate (what we know must be true) that no such evidence 
applies, to any man who acted, or to the measures adopted in 
Massachusetts at, and posterior to the time of the embargo. 
The project itself, so far as it applies to those men and mea- 
sures, and probably altogether, existed only in the distemper- 
ed fancy of Mr Adams. 

' This design' (he says) ' had been formed in the unntcr of 

* l-SOS — 4, immediately after, and as a consequence of. the 

* acquisition of Louisiana Its justifying causes, to those who 

* entertained it were, that the annexation of Louisiana to the 

* Union transcended the constitutional powers of the govern- 

* ment of the United States. That it formed, in fact, a new 

* confederacy to which the states, united by the former com- 

* pact, were not bound to adhere. That it was oppressive to 

* the interests, and destructive to the influence, of the north- 

* ern section of the confederacy, whose right and duty it 

* therefore was, to secede from the new body politic, and to 
' constitute one of their own. Tliis plan was so far matured, 
' that a proposal had been made to an individual, to permit 
' himself', at the proper time, to be placed at the head of the 

* military movementsj which, it was foreseen would be ne- 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 29 

♦•cessary for carrying it into execution.' The interview with 
Mr Jefferson was in March 1808. In May Mr Adams ceased 
to be a senator. In the winter of 1808 — 9 he made his com- 
munications to Mr Giles. In August 1809 he embarked for 
Europe, three years before the war; and did not return until 
three years after the peace; — and he admits the impossibility 
of his having given to Mr Jefferson information of negotiations 
between our citizens, and the British, during the war— or 
having relation to the war, condescending to declare, that he 
had no knowledge of such negotiations. 

The other measures, to which Mr Adams alludes, were of 
the most public character; and the most important of them 
better known, in their day, to others, than they could be to 
him, residing in a foreign country: and if the chain by which 
these measures are connected with the supposed plot shall ap- 
pear to be wholly imaginary, these measures will remain to 
be supported, as they ought to be, on their own merits. The 
letter from the Governor of Nova Scotia, as will presently be 
seen, is of no possible significance in any view, but that of 
having constituted the only information (as he says) which 
Mr Adams communicated to Mr Jefferson at the time of his 
first, and only confidential interview. It was written in the 
summer of 1807, this country being then in a state of peace. 
The Governor's correspondent is to this hour unknown to us. 
He was not, says Mr Adams, a ' leader' of the Federal party. 
The contents o"{ the letter were altogether idle, but the effect 
supposed by Mr Adams to be contemplated by the writer, 
could be produced only by giving them publicity. It was 
communicated to Mr Adams without any injunction of secre- 
cy. He has no doubt it was shewn to others. Its object was, 
he supposes, to accredit a calumny, that Mr Jefferson, and his 
measures, were subservient to France. That the British go- 
vernment were ir formed of a plan determined upon, by 
France, to effect a conquest of the British Provinces on this 
continent, and a revolution in the government of the United 
States, as means to which, they were first to produce a war 
between the United States and England. A letter of this 
tenor was «o doubt shewn to Mr Adams, as we must believe 
upon his word. The discovery would not be surprising, that 
British, as well as French officers and citizens, in a time of 
peace with tliis country, availed themselves of man)' channels 
for conveying their speculations and stratagems to other inno- 
cent ears as well as those of Mr Adams, with a view to influ- 
ence public opinion. But the subject matter of the letter was 
an absurdity. Who did not know that, in 1807, after the bat- 
tle of Trafalgar, the crippled navy of France could not un- 
dertake to transport even a single regiment across the British 
channel? And if the object Mas the conquest of the British 



30 MR ADAMS, 

provinces by tlie United States alone, how could a revolutios 
in their government, which must divide and weaken it, pro- 
mote that end ? 

The folly of a British governor in attempting to give cur- 
rency to a story which savours so strongly of the burlesque, 
can be eijualled only by the credulity of Mr Adams, in be- 
lieving it calculated to produce effect; and if he did so believe, 
it furnishes a criterion by which to estimate the correctness 
and impartiality of his judgment concerning the weight and 
the application of the other evidence which he siill withholds, 
and from which he has undertaken, with equal confidence, to 
*draw his inferences.' After the adjustment of the diploma- 
tic preliminaries with Mr Giles and others, Mr Adams com- 
municated NOTHING to Mr Jefferson, but the substance of the 
Kova Scotia letter. If Mr Adams had then known and believed 
in the ' project,' (the * key' to all the future proceedings) it is 
incredible that it should not have been deemed worthy of dis- 
closure — at that lime, ami on that occasion. 

In this connexion we advert, for a moment, to the temper of 
mind, and the state of feelings, which probably gave rise to, 
and accompanied this communication of Mr Adams. Cir- 
cumstances had occurred tending to embitter his feelings, and 
to warp his judgment. 

Mr Adams, just before the time of his interview with Mr. 
Jefferson, had voted for the embargo. He had been reproach- 
ed for having done this on the avowed principle of voting, and 
not deliberating, upon the Executive recommendation. He 
had been engaged with his colleague in a controversy on this 
subj'ect. His conduct, as he affirms, and as was the fact, had 
been censured, in terms of severity, in the public press. Tlie 
legislature of Massachusetts had elected another person to 
succeed him in the Senate of the United States, and had other- 
wise expressed such a strong and decided disapprobation of 
the measures which he had supported, that he felt compelled 
to resign his seat before the expiration of his term. These 
might be felt as injuries, even by men of placable temper. — - 
It is probable that his feelings of irritation may be traced 
back to the contest between Jefferson and ilie elder Adams. 
It is no secret, that the latter had cherished deep and bitter 
resentment against Hamilton, and certain other '^leaders' of 
the federal party, supposed to be Hamilton's friends. It 
would not beuiinatural that the son should participate in these 
feelings of the father. When Mr Adams visited Mr Jeffer- 
son, and afterwards made his disclosures to Mr Giles and 
others, having lost the confidence of his own party, he had 
decided, 'as subsequent events doubtless confirmed,' to throw 
himself into the arms of his father's opponents. But there 
Vas a load of political guilt, personal and here ditary, still 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. St 

resting upon him, in the opinions of the adverse party. No 
ordinary proof of his unqualified abjuration of his late politics 
would be satisfactory — some sacrifice, which should put his 
sincerity to the testj and place an impassable barrier between 
him and his former party, was indispensable. And what sa- 
crifice was so natural, what pledge so perfect, as this private 
denunciation! Nor dttes ihe effect seem to have been miscal- 
culated or over-rated. Mr Jefferson declares that it raised 
Mr Adams in his mind. Its eventual consequences were 
highly and permanently advantageous to Mr Adams. And 
though he assured Mr Giles that he had renounced his party 
without personal views, yet this ^ denial,' considering that he 
had the good fortune to receive, within a few months^ the em- 
bassy to Russia, ' connected with other circumstances,' which, 
ended in his elevation to the Presidency, does, indeed, ac- 
cording to his own principles of presumptive evidence, re- 
quire an effort of ' the charity which believeth all things,' to 
gain it ' creden<:e.' 

To these public, and indisputable facts, we should not now 
revert, had Mr Adams given us the names, and evidence, as 
requested; a«d had he forborne to reiterate his injurious insi- 
nuations. But as they now rest wholly upon the sanction of 
his opinion, respecting evidence which he alone possesses, we 
think it but reasonable to consider, how far these circumstan- 
ces may have heated his imagination, or disturbed his equan- 
imity, and given to the evidence, which he keeps from the 
public eye, an unnatural, and false complexion. 

We proceed then to a brief examination of the alledged pro- 
ject of 1803-4 — of the Northern confederacy. 

In the first place, IVe solemnly disavow all knowledge of 
such a project^ and all remembrance of the mention of it, or of 
any plan analogous to it, at that or any subsequent period. — 
Secondly, While it is obviously impossible fur us to contro- 
vert evidence of which we are ignorant, we are well assured 
it must be equally impossible to bring any facts which can be 
considered evidence to bear upon the designs or measures of 
those, who, at the time of Mr. Adams' interview with Mr 
Jefferson, and afterwards, during the v/ar, took an active part 
in the public affairs of Massachusetts. 

The effort discernible throughout this letter, to connect 
those later events,, which were of a public nature, and of 
which the natural and adequate causes were public, with the 
mysterious project, known only to himself, of an earlier ori- 
gin and distinct source, is in the last degree violent and dis- 
ingenuous. 

The cession of Louisiana to the United States, when first 
promulgated, was a theme of complaint aiid dissatisfaction, 
in this part of the country. This cituld not be regarded as 



32 MR ADAMS, 

factious or unreasonable, when it is admitted by Mr Adams 
that Mr Jefterson and himself entertained constitutional scru- 
ples and ((bjections to the provisions of the treaty of cession- 
Nothing, however, like a popular excitement grew nut of the 
measure, and it is sfated by Mr Adams that this project 

* sliwiberecP until the period of the embargo in December, 
18ur. Suppose then for the moment (what he have not a 
shad(»w of reason for believing, and do not believe) that upon 
the occasion of the Louisiana Treaty, ' certain leaders' influ- 
enced by constitutional objections, (admitted to have been 
common to Mr Jefferson, Mr. Adams and themselves,) had 
conceived a project of separation, and of a Northern Con- 
federacy, as the only probable counterpoise to the manufac- 
ture of new States in the South, does it follow that when the 
public mind became reconciled to the cession, and the benefi- 
cial consequences of it were realized, (as it is conceded by 
Mr Adams, was the case) these same ' leaders,' whoever they 
might be, would still cherish the embryo project, and wait 
for other contingencies, to enable them to effect it? On what 
authority can Mr Adams assume that the project merely ' slum- 
bered' for years, if his private evidence applies only to the 
time of its origin? 

The opposition to the measures of government in 1808 
arose from causes, which were common to the people, not only 
of New England, but of all the commercial states, as was 
manifested in New York, Phihidelphia, and elsewhere. By 
what process of fair reasoning then can that opposition be re- 
ferred to, or connected with a plan, which is said to have ori- 
ginated in 1804, and to have been intended to embrace mere- 
ly a northern confederacy? The objection to the Louisiana 
treaty was founded on the just construction of the compact 
between sovereign states. It was believed in New England, 
that new members could not be added to the confederacy be- 
yond tiie territorial limits of the contracting parties without 
the consent of those parties. This was considered as a fair 
subject of remonstrance, and as justifying proposals for an 
amendment of tlie constitution. But so far were the Fede- 
ral party fron» attempting to use this as an additional incen- 
tive to the pas?)ions of the day, that in a report made to the 
Legisleture of 1813 by a committee of which Mr Adams* 

• excellent friend,' Jomth Quincy was chairman, (Louisiana 
having at this time been admitted into the Union,) it is ex- 
pressly stated, that ^Ihey have not been disposed to connect this 
^great conatilulional quemon with the transient calamities of 
Hhe day, from which it is in their opinion very apparently 
*distinguished both in its cause and conscfiuences.' That in 
their view of this great constitutional (|uestion, they iiave 
confined themselves to topics and arguments drawn from the 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 33 

constitution; 'with the hope; of limiting the further prcgress 
<of the evils rather than with the expectation of iinmiHliate 
'relief dining the continuance of existing influences ia the 
'national administration.' This report was accepted : and 
thus the 'project' instead of being used as a fuel to the flame, 
is deliberately taken out of it, and presented to the people by 
*the leaders' as resting on distinct considerations from the 
'transient calamities,' and for which present redress ought 
neither to be sought, or expected. 

To the embargo imposed in December, 1807, nearly all the 
dele^-ation of Massachusetts was opposed. The pretexts for 
imposing it were deemed by her citizens a mockery of her 
sutterings. Owning nearly one-third of the tonnaoe ia the 
United States, she felt t!iat her voice ought to be hoard in 
what related to its securit}'. Depending principally on her 
foreign trade and fisheries for support, her situation appp/^>d 
desperate under the operation of this law in its terms perpet- 
ual. It was a bitter aggravation of her sutterings to be told, 
that its object was to preserve these interests. No people, at 
peace, in an equal space of time, ever endured severer priva- 
tions. She could not consider the annihilation of her trade 
as included in the power to regulate it. To her lawyers, 
statesmen, and citizens in general, it appeared a direct vio- 
lation of the constitution. It was universally odious. The 
disaftoction was not confined to the federal party. Mr Adams 
it is said, and not contradicted, announced in his letters to 
the members of Congress, that government must not rely upon 
its own friends. The interval from 1807 to 1812 was filled 
up by a series of restrictive measures vviiich kept alive the dis- 
content and irritation of the popular mind. Then followed 
the war, under circumstances whicii aggravated the public 
distress. In its progress. Massachusetts was deprived of gar- 
risons for her ports — with a line of sea coast equal, in extent, 
toone third of that of all the other maritime States, she was 
left during the whole war nearly defenceless. Her citizens 
subject to incessant alarm; a portion of the country invaded, 
and taken possession of as a conquered territory. Her own 
militia arrayed, and encamped 'at enormous expense; pay 
and subsistence supplied from her nearly exhausted treasury, 
and reimbursement refused, even to this day. Now, what, 
under the pressure and excitement of these measures was the 
conduct of the federal party, the 'devoted majority,' with the 
military force of the State in their hands; — with the encour- 
agement to be derived from a conviction that the Northern 
States were in sympathy with their feelings, and that govern- 
ment could not rely on'its own friends.^" Did they resist the 
laws? Not in a solitary instance. Did they threaten a separa- 



34 MR ADAMS, 

tion of the States? Did they array their forces with a show of 
such disposition? Did the government or people of Massachu- 
setts, in any one instance, swerve from their allegiance to the 
Union? The reverse of all this is the truth. Abandoned by 
the national government, because she declined, for reasons 
which her highest tribunal adjudged to be constitutional, to 
surrender her militia into the hands of a military perfect, al- 
though they were always equipped, and ready and faithful 
under their own officers, she nevertheless clung to the Union 
as to the ark of her safety; she ordered her well trained mili- 
tia into the field, stationed them at the points of danger, de- 
frayed their expenses from her own treasury, and garrisoned 
with them the national forts. All her taxes and excises were 
paid with punctuality and promptness, an example by no 
means followed by some of the States, in which the cry for 
war had been loudest. These facts are recited for no other 
purpose but that of preparing for the inquiry, what becomes 
of Mr Adams' 'key,' his ' project,' and his 'postulates?' — 
The latter were, to all intents and purposes, to use his lan- 
guage, 'consummated." 

Laws unconstitutional in the public opinion had been enact- 
ed. A great majority of an exasperated people were in a state 
of the highest excitement. The legislature (if his word be 
taken) was under ' the management of the leaders.' The ju- 
dicial courts were on their side, and the juries were, as he 
pretends, contaminated. A golden opportunity had arrived. 
' Now was the winter of their discontent made glorious sum- 
mer.' All the combustibles for revolution were ready. When, 
behold! instead of a dismembered Union, military movements, 
a nortiiern confederacy, and British alliance, accomplished 
at the favorable moment of almost total prostration of ihe cre- 
dit and power of the national rulers, a small and peaceful de- 
putation of grave citizens, selected from the ranks of civil 
life, and legislative councils, assembled at Hartford. There, 
calm and collected, like the Pilgrims, from whom they de- 
scended, and not unmindful of those who had achieved the 
independence of their country, they deliberated on the most 
effectual means of preserving for their fellow-citizens and 
their descendants the civil and political liberty which had 
been won, and bequeathed to them. 

The character of this muck injured assembly has been sub- 
jected to heavier imputations, under an entire deficiency not 
only of proof, but of probability, than ever befel any other set 
of men, discliarging merely the duties of a C(»mmittee of a 
legislative body, and making a public report of their doings 
to their constituents. These inq)Utatii)ns have never assum- 
ed a precise form; but vague opinions have prevailed of a com- 
bination to separate the Union. As Mr Adams has conde- 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 35 

scended, by the manner in which he speaks of that conven- 
tion, to adopt or countenance those imputations on its pro- 
ceedings, we may be excused for making a few more remarks 
oil the subject, although this is not a suitable occasion to go 
into a full explanation and vindication of that measure. 

The subject naturally resolves itself into four points, or 
questions: 

First, the constitutional right of a State to appoint delegates 
to such a convention. 

Secondly, the propriety and expediency of exercising that 
right at that time. 

Thirdly, the objects intended to be attained by it, and the 
powers given for that purpose by the State to the delegates; and 

Fourthly, the manner in which the delegates exercised their 
power. 

As to the first point, it will not be doubted that the people 
have a right, ' in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble 
to consult upon the common good,' and to request of their ru- 
lers, ' by the way of addresses, petitions, or remonstrances, 
redress of tlie wrongs done them, and of the grievances they 
suffer.' This is enumerated in the constitution of Massachu- 
setts, among our natural, essential, and unalienable rights; and 
it is recognized in the constitution of the United States; and 
who, then, shall dare to set limits to its exercise, or to pre- 
scribe to us the manner in which it shall be exerted ? We 
have already spoken of the state of public affairs and the 
measures of the general government, in the year 1814, and 
of the degree of excitement, amounting nearly to desperation, 
to which they had brought the minds of the people in this and 
the adjoining States. Tlieir sufferings and apprehensions 
could no longer be silently endured, and numerous meetings 
of the citizens had been held on the occasion, in various parts 
of the country. It was then thought that the measures called 
for in such an emergency would be more prudently and safely 
matured and promoted by the government of the State, than 
by unorganized bodies of individuals, strongly excited by 
what they considered to be the unjust and oppressive mea- 
sures of the general government. If all the citizens had the 
right, jointly and severally, to consult for the common good, 
and to seek for a redress of their grievances, no reason can 
be given why their legislative assembly, which represents 
them all, may not exercise the same right in their behalf. We 
nowhere find any constitutional prohibition or restraint of the 
exercise of this power by the State; and, if not prohibited, it 
is reserved to the State. We maintain, then, that the people 
had an unquestionable right in this, as well as in other modes, 
to express their opinions of the measures of the general go- 
vernment, and to seek, ' by addresses, petitions, or remoa- 



36 MR ADAMS, 

strances,' to obtain a redress of their grievances, and relief 
from iheir suft'erings. 

If tlieie was no constitutional objection to this mode of gro- 
ceedioi;, it will be readily admitted that it was in all respects 
the most eligible. In the state of distress and ilauger which 
then oppressed all hearts, it was to be apprehended, as be- 
fore suiigested, that larjije and frequent assertiblies of the peo- 
ple might lead to measures inconsistent with the peace and 
order of the community. If an appeal was to be made to the 
government of the United States, it was likely to be more 
eliVctual, it proceeding from the whole State c dlectively, than 
if from insulated assemblies of citizens; and the application 
in that form would tend also to repress the public excitement, 
and prevent any sudden and unadvised proceedings of the 
people, bv holding out to them the prospect of relief through 
the intluence of their State government. This latter con- 
sideration had great weight with the legislature; and it is believ- 
ed to have been the only motive that could have induced some 
of the delegates to that convention to quit the seclusion to 
which they had voluntarily retired, to expose themselves anew 
to all the fatigue and anxiety, the odium, the misrepresenta- 
tions, calumnies, and unjust reproaches, which so frequently 
accompany and follow the best exertions for tiie public good. 

If each one of the States had the right thus to seek a re- 
dress of grievances, it is clear that two or niore States might 
consult together for the same purpose; and the only mode in 
which they could consult each other was by a mutual appoint- 
ment of delegates for that purpose. 

liut this is not the only ground, nor is it the strongest, on 
which to rest the justification of the proceedings in question. 
If the "-overnment of the United States in a time of such dis- 
tress and danger should be unable, or should neglect, to af- 
ford protection and relief to the people, the legislature of the 
State would not only have a right, but it would be their duty, 
to consult together, and, if practicable, to furnish these from 
their own resources. This would be in aid of the general gov- 
ernment. How severely the people of Massachusetts experi- 
enced at that time the want this ability or disposition, in 
the general government, we need not repeat. If the legisla- 
ture of a sinjile State might under such circumstances endeav- 
our to provide for its defence, why they might not appoint a 
committee f)f delegates, to confer with delegates of neighbor- 
ing States who were exposed to like dangers and sufferings, 
to'ilevise and su;;gest to their respective legislatures measures 
by which their olvn resources might bfi employed 'in a man- 
ner not repugnant to their obligations as nuimbers of the 
Union.' A part of New-England had been invaded, and was 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 37 

then held by the enemy, without an effort by the general gov- 
ernment to regain it ; "and if another invasion, which was then 
threatened and generally expected, had taken place, and the 
New-England States h.ad been still deserted by the govern- 
ment, and left to rely on their own resources, it is obvious 
that the best mode of providing for their coiuinon defence 
would have been by a simultaneous and combined operaiion 
of all their forces. The Stales originally possessed this ri^jht, 
and we hold that it has never been surrendered, nor taken 
from tliem by the people. 

The argument on this point miglitbe easily extended ; but 
we may confidently rely on the two grounds above mention- 
ed, to wit, the right of the people, through their Siate legisla' 
tures or otherwise, to petition and remonstrate for a redress 
cf their grievances; arid the riglit of the States in a time of 
war and of threatened invasion to make the necessary pro- 
visions for their own defence. To these objects was confin- 
ed the whale authority conferred by our legislature on the 
delegates whom they appointed. They were directed to meet 
and confer with other delegates, and to devise and suggest 
measures of relief for the adoption of the respective States ; 
but not to represent or act for their constituents by agreeing 
to, or adopting any such measures themselves, or in behalf of 
the States. 

But whilst we strenuously maintain this right of the people, 
to complain, to petition, and to remonstrate in the strongest 
terms against measures which they think to be unconstitu- 
tional, unjust, or oppressive, and to do this in the manner 
which they shall deem most convt'nient or eftecuial, provided 
it be in * an orderly and peaceable manner;' we readily ad- 
mit that a wise people would not hastily resort to it, especi- 
ally in this imposing form, on every occasion of partial and 
temporary discontent or suff-*ring. We therefore proceed to 
consider, 

Secondly, the propriety and expediency of adopting that 
measure in the autumn of 1814. On this point it is enough to 
say, that the grievances that were suil'ered and the dangers 
that were apprehended at that time, and the strong excite- 
ment which tliey produced among all the people, which is sta- 
ted more particularly elsev^h'^re in this address, rendered 
some measures for tlieir relief indispensably necessary. If 
the legislature had n>it uadert3ken their causs, it appeared 
to be certain, as we have already suggested, that tlie people 
would take it into their own hands ; and there was reason to 
fear that the proceedings in that case might be less orderly 
and p:"acefui, and at the same time, less eliicacious. 

Tlnrdiy. We have already stated the objects which our 
State government had in view, in proposing the convention 



38 MR ADAMS, 

at Hartford, and the powers conferred on their delegates. If, 
instead of these avowed objects, there had been any secret plot 
for a dismemberment of the Union, in which it had been de- 
sired to engage the neighboring States, the measures for that 
purpose we may suppose would have been conducted in the 
most private manner possible. On the contrary, the resolution 
of our legislature for appointing their delegates, and prescrib- 
ing their powers and duties, was openly discussed and pas- 
sed in the usual manner; and a copy of it was immediately 
sent, by direction of the legislature, to the governor of every 
State in the Union. 

Fourthly. The only remaining question is, whether the 
delegates exceeded or abused their powers. As to this, we 
have only to refer to the report of their proceedings, and to 
their journal, which is deposited in the archives of this State. 

That report, which was published immediately after the 
adjournment of the convention, and was soon after accepted 
by the legislature, holds forth t!ie importance of the Union as 
paramount to all other consideration; enforces it by elaborate 
reasoning, and refers in express terms to JFashingtoii's fare- 
ivell address, as its text book. If then, no power to do wrong 
ivas given by the legislature to the convention, and if nothing 
unconstitutional, disloyal, or tending to disuion, was in fact 
done (all which is manifest of record,) there remains no pre- 
text for impeaching the members of the convention by imput- 
ing to them covert and nefarious designs, except the unchari- 
table one, that the characters of the men justify the belief, that 
they cherished in their hearts wishes, and intentions, to do 
what they had no authority to execute, and what in fact they 
did not attempt. On this head, to the people of New England 
who were acquainted with these characters, no explanation is 
necessary. For the information of others, it behoves those of 
us who were members to speak without reference to ourselves. 
With this reserve we may all be permitted to say, without 
fear of contradiction, that they fairly represented whatever of 
moral, intellectual, or patriotic worth, is to be found in the 
character of the New England community; that they retained 
all the personal consideration and conlidence, which are en- 
joyed by tlie best citizens, those who have deceased, to the 
hour of tlieir death, and those who survive, to the present 
time. For the satisfaction of tliose who look to self love, and 
to private interest, as sprin;js of human action, it may be ad- 
ded, that among the mass of citizens, friends, and connexions 
whom tiiey represented, were many, whose fortunes were 
princij)ally vested in the public funds, to wliom the disunion 
of the States would have been ruin. That convention may be 
said to have orii^inatcd with the people. Measures for relief 
had been demanded from immense numbers, in counties and 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 39 

iowns, in all parts of the State, long before it was organized. 
Its main and avowed object was the defence of this part of the 
tountry against the common enemy. The war then wore its 
most tnreatening aspect. New-England was destitute of na- 
tional troops; her treasuries exhausted; her taxes drawn into 
the national coffers. 

The proceedings, and report of the convention, were in con- 
formity with this object. The burden of that report consist- 
ed in recommending an application to Congress to permit the 
States to provide for their own defence, and to be indemnified 
for the expense, by reimbursement, in some shape, from the 
National Government, of, at least, a portion of their own mo- 
ney. This convention adjourned early in January. On the 
27th of the same month, an act of Congress was passed, 
which gave to the State Governments, the very power which 
\v^% sought by Massachusetts; viz — that of raising, organiz- 
ing and officering' state troops, ' to be employed in the State 
raising the same, or in any adjoining State' and providing for 
their pay and subsistence. This we repeat, was the most im- 
portant object aimed at by the institution of the convention, 
and by the report of that body. Had this act of Congress 
passed, before the act of Massachusetts, for organizing the 
convention, that convention never would have existed. — Had 
such an act been anticipated by the convention, or passed 
before its adjournment, that assembly would have consider- 
ed its commission as in a great measure, superseded. For 
although it prepared and reported sundry amendments to the 
constitution of the United States, to be submitted to all the 
States, and might even, if knowing of this act of Congress, 
have persisted in doing the sa«ne thing, yet, 4s this proposal 
for amendments could have been accomplished in other modes, 
they could have had no special motive for so doing, but what 
arose from their being together; and from the consideration 
which might be hoped for, as to their propositions, from that 
circumstance. It is thus matter of absolute demonstration, 
to all who do not usurp the privilege of the searcher of 
hearts that the design of the Hartford Convention and its do- 
ings were not only constitutional and laudable, but sanction- 
ed by an act of Congress, passed after the report was published, 
not indeed with express reference to it, but with its principal 
features, and thus admitting the reasonableness of its general 
tenor, and principal object. It is indeed grievous to perceive 
Mr Adams condescending to intimate that the Convention 
was adjourned to Boston, and in a strain of rhetorical pathos 
connecting his imaginary plot, then at least in the thirteenth 
year of its age, with the ' catastrophe' which awaited the ul- 
timate proceedings of the convention. That assembly ad- 
journed without day, after making its report. It was ipso 



40 MR ADAMS, 

facto dissolved, like other Committees. One of its resolu 
tions did indeed purport that 'iftiie application of these 
States to the government of the United States, {recommended 
in a foregoing resolution) should he unsuccessful, and peace 
should not be concluded, and the defence of these States should 
be neglected as it has been, since the commencement of the 
v;ar, it will be, in the opinion of this Convention, expedient 
for the Leg:islature'(»f the several States, to appoint delef>-ates 
to another Convention h^ meet at Boston on the third Tuesday 
of June next, v.iih sucli powers and in>truction.s as the exi- 
gency cf a criils, so momentous may recjuire.' On this it is 
to be observed, 

First, tliat the Convention contemplated in the fore- 
5;oing resolution never was appointed, and never could 
fiave been, according to the terms of that resolution,- 
because, as is shewn above, the object of the intended 
application to Congress had been attained. And, Secoiidhv 
if the contingerces mentioned in that resolution had occurred, 
the question of forming such a new Convention, and the ap- 
pointment (if the delegates, must have gone into the hands of 
new assembliesj because a'l t'le Legislatures of the New- 
England states would have been dissolved, and there would 
iiave been new elections, before the time proposed for the se- 
cond convention. And, lasth', it is matter of public notoriety 
that the report of this convention produced the effect of as- 
suaging the public sensibility, and operated to repress the 
vaj^ue and ardent expectations entertained by many of our 
ci'a/.cn.-i, of immediate and etrectual relief, from the evils of 
their condition. 

We pass over the elaborate exposition of constitutional law 
in the President's letter having no call, nor any inclination at 
this time to controvert its leading principles. Neither do we 
comment up'tn, though we perceive and feel, the unjust, and 
we niust be cxcu'-ed for saying, insidious mode in which he 
has grouped togeliier distant and disconnected occurrences, 
which happened in his absence from the country, for the pur- 
pose ot piuduciiig, by their collocation, a glaring and sinister 
elfect upon t!ie fed rial jiarty. They were all of a public na- 
ture. The argumoits concerning their merit or demerit have 
l)een exhausted; and time, and the good sense of an intelligent 
people, will place th.em ultimately in their true liglit, even 
ihougli Mr- Adams should continue to throw obstacles in the 
way ot this harmonious reaction of public opinion. 

Jt has been a source of wonder and perplexity to many in 
our commuriity, to ob.icrve the immense dilferencein tlie stan- 
dards by which public ojiinion has been led to measure the 
same kind of proceedings, when adopted in dillerent States. 
No pretence is urged that any actual resistance to the laws, or 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 41 

forcible violation of t'lC constitQtional compact, has ever hap- 
pened in Massachusetts. Constitutional questions have arisen 
here as well as in other States. It is surprising and consoli- 
tarj that the number has not been greater, and that the termi- 
nation of them has not been less amicable. To the discussion 
of some of them great excitement was unavoidably incident; 
but in comparingcases with causes and effects, the impartial 
observer will perceive nothing to authorize any disparagement 
of tiiis State, to the advantage of the pretensions of other 
members of the confederacy. 

On this subject we disclaim the purpose of instituting invidi- 
ous comparisons; but every one knows that Massachusetts has 
not breen alone in complaints and remonstrances against the 
acts of the national government. Nothing can be found on 
the records of her legislative proceedings, surpassing the tone 
of resolutions adopted in other States in reprobation of the 
alien and sedition laws. In one State opposition to the exe- 
cution of a treaty, in others to the laws instituting tlie bank, 
has sounded the note of preparation for resistance in more 
impassioned strains than were ever adopted here. And at 
this moment, claims of State rights, and protests against the 
measures of the national government, in terms, for v.hich no 
parallel can be found in Massachusetts, are ushered into the 
halls of Congress, under the most solemn and imposing forms 
of State authority. It is not our part to censure or to approve 
these proceedings. Massachusetts has done nothing at any 
time, in opposition to the national government, and s!ie has 
said nothing in derogation of i.s powers, that is not fully jus- 
tified by the constitution; and not so much as other States 
have said, with more decided emphasis; and, as it is believed, 
without the stimulus of the same actual giievances. "NVe are 
no longer at a loss to account for the prevalence of these pre- 
judices against tliis part of the Union, since they can now be 
traced, not only to calumnies openly propagated in the season 
of bitter contention by irritated op| onents, but to the secret 
and hitherto unknown aspersions of Mr Adams. 

Mr Ji'fferson, then at the head of government, declares that 
the effect of Mr Adams" communication to him at their inter- 
view in March, 1808, was sucli on his mind, as to induce a 
change in the system of his administration. Like impressions 
were doubtlt'ssinade on Mr Giles and others, who then gave 
direction to the public sentiment. Notwithstanding these dis- 
advantages, if Mr Adams had not seen fit to proclaim to the 
world his former secret denunciation, there had !.tiil been 
room to hope tliat those impressions would be speedily oblite- 
rated, that odious distinctions between the people of different 
States would be abolished, and that all would come to feel a 
'•ommon interest in referring symptoms of excitement against 



42 MR ADAMS, 

the procedure of the national government, which have been 
manifested successively on so many occasions, and in so many 
States, to the feelings, Avhich, in free governments, are al- 
ways roused by like causes, and are characteristic, not of a 
factious but of a generous sensibility to real or supposed usur- 
pation. But Mr Adams returns to the charge with new ani- 
mation; and by his political legacy to the people of Massa- 
chusetts, undertakes to entail upon them lasting dishonor.— 
He reaffirms his convictions of the reality of the old project, 
persists in connecting it with later events, and dooms himself 
to the vocation of proving that the federal party were either 
traitors or dupes. Thus he has again (but not like a healing 
angel) troubled the pool, and we know not when the turbid 
waters will subside. 

It must be apparent, that we have not sought, but have been 
driven into this unexpected and unwelcome controversy. On 
the restoration of peace in 1815, the federal party felt like 
men, who, as by a miracle, find themselves safe from the most 
appalling joer«7. Their joy was too engrossing to permit a vin- 
dictive recurrence to the causes of that peril. Every emotion 
of animosity was permitted to subside. From that time until 
the appearance of Mr Adams' publication, they had cordially 
joined in the general gratulation on the prosperity of their 
country, and the security of its institutions. They were con- 
scious of no deviation from patriotic duty, in (my measure 
wherein they had acted, or which had passed with their appro- 
bation. They were not only contented, but grateful, in the 
prospect of the duration of civil liberty, according to tl)e forms 
which the people had deliberately sanctioned- These objects 
being secured, they cheerfully acquiesced in tlie administra- 
tion of government, by whomsoever the people might call to 
places of trust, and of honor. 

With such sentiments and feelings, the public cannot but 
participate in the astonishment of the undersigned, at the 
time, the manner, and the nature, of Mr Adam's publication. 
We make no attempt to assign motives to him, nor to com- 
ment on such as may be imagined. 

The causes of past controversies, passing, as they were, to 
oblivion among existing generations, and arranging them- 
selves, as they must do, for the impartial scrutiny of future 
historians, the revival of them can be no less di^tasteful to 
the public, than painful to us. Yet, it could not be expected, 
that while Mr Adams, from his high station, sends forth the 
unfounded suggestions of his imagination, or his jealousy, as 
materials for present opinion, and future history, we should, 
by silence give countenance to his charges: nor tliat we should 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 43 

neglect to vindicate the reputation of ourselves,our associates, 
and our fathers. 

H. G. OTIS, WM. SULLIVAN, 

ISRAEL TIWRNDIKE, CHARLES JACKSON, 

T. H. PERKINS, WARREN DUTTON, 

WM. PRESCOTT, BENJ. PICKMAN, 

DANIEL SARGENT, HENRY CABOT, 

Son of the late George Cabot. 

JOHN LOWELL, C. C. PARSONS, 

Son of Theophiliis Parsons, Esq. dcc'd* 

Boston^ January 28, 1829. 

I subscribed the foregoing letter, and not the Reply, for the following 
reasons: Mr Adams in his statement published in the National Intelligencer, 
spoke of the leaders of the Federal party, in the year 1808 and for several 
years previous as engaged in a systematic opposition to the general government 
having for its object the dissolution ol the Union, and the establishment of a 
separate confederacy by the aid of a foreign power. As a proof of tliat dis- 
position, particular allusion is made to the opposition to the embargo in the 
Courts of Justice in Massachusetts. This pointed the chai-ge directly at my 
late father, wliose efforts in that cause are probably remembered; and was the 
reason of my joining in the application to Mr Adams to know on wliat such 
a charge was founded. If this construction of the statement needs confirma- 
tion, it is to be found in one of the letters lately published in Salem as 
Mr Adams's. 

Mr Adams in his answer has extended his accusation to a subsequent 
jreriod. In the events of that time I have not the same interest as in those 
preceding it; and as the. Reply was necessarily co-extensive with the answer 
that reason prevented me from joining in it. 1 take this opportunity, however, 
to say for myself, that I find in Mr Adams's answer no justification of his 
charges; and, in reply to that portion of his letter particularly addressed to 
me, that I have seen no proof, and shall not re.idily believe, that any portion 
of my father's political course is to be attributed ki the influence there suggested 

FRANKLIN DEXTER. 

Boston, January 28, 1829. 



ADDITIONAL. PAPERS, 

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE SUBJECT. 



[Not embraced in the Boston Edition. 



Extract of aletterfrom John Quincy Adams to TVilliam Ph(- 
mer, Esq., dated, M Sea, 16 August, 1809. 

The spirit of party has become so inveterate and so virulent 
in our country; it has so totally absorbed the understandinj^, 
and the heart of almost all the distinguished men among us, 
that I, who cannot cease to consider all the individuals of 
both parties as my countrymen; who can neither approve nor 
disapprove, in a lump, either of the men or the measures of 
either party; who see both sides claiming an exclusive privi 
lege of patriotism, and using against each other weapons ot 



44 MR ADAMS, 

political warfare v.hich I never can handle, cannot but die 
risK that congenial spirit which has always preserved itself 
pure from the infectious vapours of faction; which considers 
temperance as one of the first piditical duties; a«id which can 
perci'ive a very distinct shade of difference between political 
candor and political hypocrisy'. 

It affords me constant pleasure to recollect that the history 
of our country has fallen into the hands of such a man. For 
as impartiality lies at the bottom of all historical truth, I have 
often been not without my apprehensions, that no true history 
(if our times would appear, at least, in the course of our age. 
That we should have nothing but Federal Histories or Repub- 
lican Histories — New England Histories or Virginia Histo- 
ries. We are indeed not overstocked with men capable even 
of this, who have acted a part in t!ie public aifairs of our na- 
tion. But of men who unite both ([ualifications, that of hav- 
ing had a practical knowledge of our atlairs, and that of pos- 
sessing a mind capable of impartiality in summing up the 
merits of imr Govern-.aent, Administrations, Oppositions, and 
People, I know not anotiier man v. ith whom I have ever had 
the opportunity of forming an acquaintance, on the correct- 
ness of whose narrative I should so implicitly rely. 

Such a historian, and I take delight in the belief, will be a 
Legislator without needing constituents. You have so long 
meditated on yuur plan, and so much longer upon the duties 
of man in society, as they apply to the transactions of your 
own life, that I am well assured your work v.ill carry a pro- 
found political moral with it. And I hope, though upon this 
subject I have had no hint from you, which can ascertain that 
vour view of the subjvect is the same as n»ine; but I hope that 
the ??jora/ of your History will be, the indissoluble Union of 
the North American (continent. The plan of a New England 
Conibination more t Icsely cemented than by the general ties 
of the Fedtnal Government; a com!)ii)ation, first to rule the 
whole, and if that should prove impiacticable to separate from 
the rest, has been so far matured, and has engaged the stu- 
dios, the intrigues and tlie andjilions of so many leading men, 
in our part of tiie country, tliat I think it will eveiitually pro- 
duce loischievous consequences unless seasonably and otF^^c- 
tually discountenanced by men of more influence and of more 
couiprehensive views. 'l"o rise upon a division system is un- 
fortunately one of the most obvious, and apjjarcntly easy 
courses v.hich plays before the eyes ol individual ambition, in 
every section of tlie Union. It is the natural resource ot all 
the small statesmen, who, feeling like Ciusar, and finding that 
Rome is too large an object for lln ir gra.-p, would stiike oH' a 
viifige uheie they n.ight aspire to the fust station without 
exposing thcmbelves to derision. This has been the most 



AND THE BOSTON FEDEllALISTS. 45 

powerful operative impulse upon all the diimionisis from tlie 
first Kentucky conspiracy down to the negotiations between 
Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire of the last 
winter and spring — considered merely as a purpose of ambi- 
tion, the great objection against this scheme is its littleness. 
Instead of adding all the tribes of Israel to Judah and Benja- 
min like David, it is walking in the ways of Jeroboam, the son 
of Nebat, who made Israel to sin by breaking oft' Samaria from 
Jerusalem. Looking at in reference to moral considerations, 
it is detestable, as it certaitdy cannot beaccompli-.hed by open 
and honorable means. The abettors are obliged to disavow 
their real designs — to affect others — to practice continvial de- 
ception, and 10 work upon the basest materials, the selfish 
and dissocial passions of their instruments. Politically speak- 
ing, it is as injudicious as it is contracted and dishonorable. 
The American People are not prepared for disunion,: far less 
so than these people imagine. They will continue to resist 
and defeat every attempt of that character, as they uniformly 
have done, and such projects will still terminate in the ruin 
of their projectors. But the ill consequences of this turbu- 
lent spirit' will be to keep the country in a state of constant 
ac-itation, to embitter the local prejudices of fellow citizens 
against each other, and to diminish the influence which we 
ought to have, and might have, in the general councils of the 
Union. 

To counteract the tendency of these partial and foolish com- 
binations, I know nothins: so likely to have a decisive influ- 
ence as historical v/orks honestly and judiciously executed. 
For if the doctrine of Union were a new one now first to be 
inculcated, our history would furnish the most decisive argu- 
ments in its favor. It is no longer the great lesson to be learnt, 
but the fundamental maxim to be confirmed j and every spe- 
cies of influence should be exerted by all genuine American 
Patriots to make its importance more highly estimated and 
more unquestionably established. Perhaps you will find it 
impossible to avoid disclosing the New England man — 1 have 
enough of that feeling myself most ardently to wish, that the 
brio-htest examples of a truly liberal and comprehensive Ameri- 
can political system may be exhibited by New England men. 

I regret that I could not have the pleasure of a full and con- 
fidential personal interview with you, before my departure. 
My father I am sure will be happy to see you at Quincy, and 
to furnish you any materials in his power. He has been for 
the last three months publishing papers which 1 think will not 
be without their use in your undertaking. 

Adieu, my dear Sir. I write you this letter on the Grand 
Bank of Newfoundland, after passing the night in catching 
cod — of which in the interval of a six hours calm, we have 



r 



46 MR ADAMS, 

caught upwards of sixty. In the association of ideas there is 
no very unnatural transition from codfishing on the Grand 
Bank to the History of the United States. No man will I 
trust be better able than yourself to supply the intermediate 
links in this singular concatenation. Letme only hope it will 
appear to you as natural a transition, as that from any subject 
whatsoever to the assurance of that respect and attachment 
with which I subscribe myself, 

Your friend and humble servant. 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

[From Austin's Life of Gerry.] 

Extract of a letter from a distingtmhed citizen of the United 
States, dated at St. Petersburg, 50th June, 1811. 

" The Massachusetts election appears to agitate tlie Americans in Europe 
almost exclusively; of all the other elections going on at the same time in 
many parts of the union, i see para};raphs in the newspapers, but hear not a 
syllable from any other quarter. But American federalists in tliis city have 
received letters from their friends in London and in Gottenbui-g, in high ex- 
ultation announcing tlie election of Mr. Gore by a majority of more than three 
thousand votes. Other Americans of difFei'ent politics contest the validity of 
tliis retMrn, and aflirm that Mr. Gerry and jNIr. Gray have been re-elected, 
though by a reduced majority compared with that of the last year. Why this 
extreme anxiety for the .Massachusettx electionp Is it Mr. Gore for whose 
elevation all this enthusiasm is harboured? I think it by no means difficult to 
account for. Tliere is much foreign hope and fear involved in these Massa- 
chusetts elections; all the rest, e\en New York, are despaired of. But the 
Massachusetts federal politicians have got to talk so openly and with such 
seeming indifl'erence, not to say readiness for a dissolution of the union; they 
are so valiant in their threats of resistance to the laws; they seem so resolute 
for a little experiment upon the e7te7'gy of the union and its government, that 
in the prospects of a war with America, wliich most of the British statesmen 
now at the helm consider as in the line of wise policy, they and all tlieir par- 
tizans calculate boldly and witliout disguise or concealment upon the co-ope- 
ralinn of the Massacliuselts federalisls. Tlie Massachusetts election there- 
fore, is a touchstone of national principle, and upon its issue may depend the 
question of peace and war between the United Slates and England. However 
hostile a British ministry may feel against us, they will never venture upon it 
until they can depend upon an active co-opci-ation with tliem, w ithin the Uni- 
ted States. Itis from the New England federalists alone that they can expect it. 
From the same view of the subject, though prompted by very opposite feel- 
ings, I loo take a deep interest in the Massachusetts elections. I have known 
now more than seven years the projects of the Boston faction against ihe uni6n. 
'I'hey have ever since that time at lea?!t, been seeking a pretext and an occa- 
sion for avowing the principle. The people however, have never been ready 
to go with them; and when in the embargo time they did for a moment get a 
majority with them, they only verified the old proverb about setting a beggar 
on hnrse-b.ick. Mr. Quincy has been at the pains now of furnisiiihg them with 
a n(;w pretext, whieh will wear na better than its predecessors. Air. Quincy 
should not have quoted me as an authority for a dissolution of the union. He 
may be assuivd it is a doctrine that never will have my sanction. It is my at- 
t.ichiaent to thermion, which makes mt specially anxious for the result of the 
Massachusetts elections. They are a contest of life and deatii tor the union. 
If liiat party are not nltimati (y put down in .Massachusetts, as completely as 
tliey alteady are in New York and Peims\ Ivania, and all the southcin and wes- 
tern states, the union is gone. Instead ot a nation coexteiisive with the North 
Ami-rican continent, destined by (jO>I an<I Nature to be the most poi)ulous 
«n<l most pciwerful people, ever coml>ineil under one social conqiact, we shall 
h;i\<: an imile'^s muliitudc of little insignificant clansand ti-ibes, at eternal «ar 
with one another, for a rock orafi>h-poud, the s{)ort and fable of European 
inast'-rs and oppixssors. 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 47 

Extract of a letter from William Pbaner, heretofore a Sena- 
tor of the United States, and afterwards Governor of New 
Hampshire. 

EppiNG, N. H. December 20, 1828. 
During the long and eventful session of Congress of 1803 
and 1804, I was a member of the senate, and was at the city 
of AVashington every day of that session. In the course of 
the' session, at dift'erent times and places, several of the Fed- 
eralists, senators and representatives, from the New England 
States, informed me that they thougiit it necessary to estab- 
lish a separate government in New England, and if it should 
be found practicable, to extend it so far South as to include 
Pennsylvania; but in all events to establish one in New Eng- 
land. They complained, that the slave holding States liad 
acquired, by means of their slaves, a greater increase of Rep- 
resentatives in the house than was just and equal — that too 
great a portion of the public revenue was raised in the North- 
ern States, and too much of it expended in the Southern and 
Western States; and that the acquisition of Louisiana, and 
the new States that were formed, and those to be formed in 
the West and in the ceded Territory, would soon annihilate 
the weight and influence of the Northern States in the go- 
vernment. 

Their intention, they said, was to establish their new go- 
vernment under the authority and protection of state govern- 
ments. That having secured the election of a governor, and a 
majority of a Legislature in a state in favor of a separation, 
the legislature should repeal the law authorizing the people 
to elect representatives to Congress, and the Legislature de- 
cline electing senators to Congress, and gradually withdraw 
the state from the Union, establish custom house oificers to 
grant Registers, and clearances to vessels, and eventually es- 
tablish a federal government in the Northern and Eastern 
States. And that if New England united in the measure, it 
would in due time be eftected without resorting to arms. 

Just before that session of Congress closed, one of the 
gentlemen to whom I have alluded, informed me, that ar- 
rangements had been made to have the next autumn, in Bos- 
ton, a select meeting of the leading federalists in New England, 
to consider and recommend the measures necessary to form a 
system of Government for the Northern States, and that 
Alexander Hamilton, of New York, had consented to attend 
that meeting. 

Soon after my return from Washington, I adopted the 
most effectual means in my power to collect the opinions of 
^vell informed leading federalists in New Hampshire, upon 
the subject- I found some in favor of the measure, but a 
great majority of them decidedly opposed to the project; and 
from the partial and limited enquiries i made in Massachu- 



48 MR ADAMS, 

setts, the result appeared to me nearly similar to that in Nevv- 
Hampsliire. 

Tlie Gentleman, who in the winter of 1803 and 1804, in- 
formed me tiiere was to be a meeting of federalists in the au- 
tumn of 1804, at Boston, at the session of Congress in the 
winter of 1804 and 1805, observed to me, that the deatii of 
General Hamilton had prevented that meeting; but the pro- 
ject was not, and would not be abandoned. 

I owe it to you as well as mjself, to state explicitly, that in 
the session of Congress, in the winter ot 1803 and 1804, 1 
was, myself in favor of forming a separate Government in 
New Enj;land; and wrote several confidential letters to a few 
of my friends and correspondents, recommending the mea- 
sure. But afterwards, upon thoroughly investigating and 
maturely considering rhe subj.^ct, 1 was fully convinced that 
my opinion in favor of separation, was the most erroneous 
that 1 ever formed upon political subjects. The only conso- 
lation I had, was that my error in opinion had not produced 
any acts injurious to the integrity of the Union. \Vhen the 
same project was revived in 1803 and 1809, during the em- 
bargo and nonintercourse, and afterwards, during the war of 
1812, I used every effort in my power, both privately, and 
publicly, to defi^at the attempt then made to establish a sepa- 
rate independent government in the Northern States. 

You are at liberty to make such use of this communication 
as you shall consider proper. 

Accept the assurance of my high respect and esteem, 

[Signed] WILLIAM PLUMKR. 

Extract from a Sermon preached at Boston, 23rZ Jiily, 1812, 
by a highly respectable clergyman, intimately connected with 
the most eminent leaders of the thai Federal party. 
"The alternative then is, that if you do not wish to become 
the slaves of those who own slaves, and who are themselves 
the slaves of French slaves, you must either, in the language 
of the day, cut the connexion, or so far alter the Natioiial 
Constitution, as to secure yourselves a due share in the Go- 
vernment. The Union has long since been virtually dissolv- 
ed, and it is full time that this portion of the disunited States 
should take care of itself. But this, as Mr Burke expresses 
it, is high mutter, and must be left to the united wisdom of a 
Xorthcrn and Eastern Convention. The voice of the people, 
who are our sovereigns, will then be heard, and must be res- 

ftected. To continue to sulfer, as wk havk kight vkabs past, 
rom the incapacity of a weak if not a corrupt Administration, 
is more than can be expected from human patience, or chris- 
tian resignation. The time has arrived when common prudence 
is pusillanimity, and m.)deration has ceased to be a virtue." 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS 49 

Extracts from the Journals of the Hartford Convention. 

Rides of Proceeding — adopted \5 December, 1814, the first 

day nfthe Meeting. 

2. The most inviolable secrecy shall be observed by each 
Member of this C(»nveiition, including the Secretary, as to all 
propositions, debates and proceedi!i<;;s thereof, until this in- 
junction shall be suspended or altered. 

3. The Secretary of this Convention is authorised to em- 
ploy some suitable person to serve as a door-keeper and mes- 
senger, together with a suitable assistant, if necessary, neither 
of whom are at any time to be made acquainted with any of the 
debates or proceedings of the Board. 

January 3, 1815. 

»^fter the acceptance of Ihe final Report — 

On motion, Resolved, That the injunction of secrecy, in 
regard to all the Debates and proceedings of this Convention, 
except in so far as relates to the Report finally adopted, be, 
and hereby is, contimced. 

N. B. This injunction of secrecy was never removed. The 
Convention aiijourned the 5lh of January. 

Extracts from Use final Report of the Convention. 
*' To prescribe patience and firmness to those who are al- 
ready exhausted by distress, is sometimes to drive them to 
despair, and the prtigress towards reform by the regular road, 
is irksome to those whose imaginations discern, and whose 
feelings prompt, to a shorter course. — But when abuses, re- 
tiuced to system and accumulated through a course of year,*-, 
have pervaded every department of Government, and spreau 
corruption through every region of the States when these are 
clothed wiih the forms of law, and enforced by an Executive 
whose Vvill is their source, no summary means of relef can be 
applied without recourse to direct and open resista)i:e.-' 

'• It is a truth, not to be concealed, that a sentiment pre- 
vails to no inconsiderable extent, that Adm'nistration have 
given such constructions to that instrument, and practised so 
many abuses, under color of its authority, t/iat the time for a 
change is at haml. Those who so believe, regard the evils 
which surround them as intrinsic and incurable defects in the 
Constitution. They yield to a persuasion, that no change, 
at any time, or on any occasion, can aggravate the misery of 
their country. This opinion may ultimately prove to be cor- 
rect. But as the evidence on which it rests is not yet con- 
clusive, and as measures adopted apon the assumption of its 
certainty tniglit be irrevocable, s^me general considerations 
are submitted, in the hope of reconciling all to a course of 
moderation and firmness, which may save them from the regret 
4 



50 MR ADAMS, 

incident to sudden decisions, probably avert the evil, or at least 
insure consolation and success in the last resort.''^ 

*' The lust and caprice of power, the corruption of patron- 
a«»e, the oppression of the weaker interests of the community 
by the stronger, heavy taxes, wasteful expenditures, and un- 
just and ruinous wars, are the natural offspring of bad Admi- 
nistrations, in all ages and countries. It was indeed to be 
hoped, that the rulers of these Slates would not make such 
disastrous haste to involve their infancy in the embarrassments 
of old and rotten institutions. Yet all this have they done; 
and their conduct calls loudly for their dismission and dis- 
grace. But to attempt upon every abuse of power to change 
the Constitution, would be to perpetuate the evils of revolu- 
tion." 

" Finally, if the Union be destined to dissolution, by rea- 
son of the multiplied abuses of bad administrations, it should, 
if possible, be the work of peaceable times, and deliberate 
consent. Some new form of confederacy should be substitu- 
ted among those States, which shall intend to maintain ajede- 
ral relation to each other. Events may prove that the causes 
of our calamities are deep and permanent. They may be 
found to proceed, not merely from the blindness of prejudice, 
pride of opinion, violence of party spirit, or the confusion of 
the times; but they may be traced to implacable combinations 
ol individuals, or of States, to monopolize power and office, 
and to Trample without remorse upon the rights and interests 
oi commercial sections of the l^nion. Whenever it shall ap- 
pear that these causes are radical and permanent, a separa- 
tion by equitable arrangement, will be preferrable to an al- 
liance by constraint, among nominal friends, but real enemies, 
inflamed hy mutual hatred and jealousies, and inviting by in- 
testine divisions, contempt, and aggression from abroad. But 
a severance of the Union by one or metre States, against the 
will of the resi, and especially in a time of war, can be ji' sti- 
fled only hy uhsoWte necessity Those are among the princi- 
pal objections ix^^iny-it precipitate measures tending to disunite 
the Stales, and wlun examined in connexion with the fare- 
well address of the Ftther of his country, they must, it is be- 
lieved, be deemed cond.usive." * 

" In this whole series of devices and measures for raising 
men, this Coiivention discern a total disregard for the 
Conslilution, and a disposition to violate its provisions de- 
manding fro % the individvcU States a firm and decided oppo- 
sition. An iron despotism can impo!?e no ha\(ler servitude 
npon the citizen, than to forco \\\n\ from his home and his oc- 
cupation, to wage oBensive wars, undertaken to gratify the 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 51 

pride or passions of his master. The example of France has 
recently shewn that a cabal of individuals assuming to act in 
the name of the people, may transform the great body of citi- 
zens into soldiers, and deliver them over into the hands of a 
single tyrant. No war, not held in just abhorrence by a peo- 
ple, can require the aid of such stratagems to recruit an army." 

" That acts of Congress in violation of the Constitution are 
absolutely void, is an undeniable position. It does not, how- 
ever, consist with the respect and forbearance due from a con- 
federate State towards the General Government, to fly to 
open resistance upon every infraction of the Constitution.— 
The mode and the energy of the opposition should always con- 
form to the nature of the violation, the intention of its authors, 
the extent of the injury inflicted, the determination manifest- 
ed to persist in it, and the danger of delay. Hut in cases of 
deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Consti- 
tution, affecting the sovereignty of a State, and liberties of 
the people; it is not only the right but the duty of such a 
State to interpose its authority for their protection, in the 
manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergen- 
cies occur which are either beyond the reach of the judicial 
tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to 
their form!?. States, which have no common umpire, must be 
their own judges, and execide their own decisions. It will 
THUS BE PROPER for thc scvcral States to await the ultimate 
disposal of the obnoxious measures, recommended by the Se- 
cretary of War, or pending before Congress, and so to use 
their power according to the character these measures shall fi- 
nally assume, as effectually to protect their own sovereignty, 
and the rights and liberties of their citizens." 

"The last inquiry, what course of conduct ought to be adopt- 
ed by the aggrieved States, is in a high degree momentous. — 
When a great and brave people shall feel themselves deserted 
by their Government, and reduced to the necessity either of 
submission to a foreign enemy, or of appropriating to their own 
use those means of defence which are indispensable to self- 
preservation, they cannot consent to waif passive spectators of 
approaching ruin, lohich it is in their power to avert, and to re- 
sign the last remnant of their industrious eurniugs, to be dis- 
sipated in support of measures destructive of the best interests 
of the nation 

•'THIS CONVENTION WILL NOT TRUST THEM- 
SELVES TO EXPRESS THEiP CONVICTION OF THE 
CATASPROPHE TO WHICH SUCH A STATE OF 
THINGS INEVITABLY TENDS." 



52 MR ADAMS, 

It would be inexpedient f.)r this Convention to diminish the 
hope of a successful issue to such an application, by recom- 
mending, upon supposition of a contrary event, ulterior pro- 
ceedings. Nor is it indeed within their province. In a state 
of things so solemn and trying as may then arise, the Legisla- 
tures of the States, or Conventions* of the whole people, or 
delegates appointed by them for the express purpose in anotlier 
Convention, must act as such urgent circumstttMcs may then 
require. '"^ 



?y 



THEREFORE RESOLVED— 

"That it be and hereby is recommended to the Legisla- 
tures of the several States represented in this Convention, to 
adopt all such measures as may be necessary effectually fo pro- 
tect the citizens of said States from the operation and effects of 
all acts which HA VE BEEN or incty be passed by the Congress 
of the United States, which, shall contain provisions, subjecting 
the militia or other citizens'to forcible drafts, conscriptions, or 
impressments, not authorized by the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States." 

" Resolved, That it be and hereby is recommended to the 
said Legislatures, to authorize an immediate and earnest ap- 
plication to be made to the Government of the United States, 
tequesting their consent to some arrangement, whereby the 
said States may, separately or in concert, be empowered to 
assume upon themselves the defence of their territory against 
the enemy; and a reasonable portion of the taxes, collected 
within said States, «i03/ 6c /jmWin/o the respective treasuries 
thereof and appropriated to the payment of the balance due 
said States, and to the future defence, of the same. The 
Jimount so paid into the said treasuries to be credited, and the 
disbursements made as aforesaid to be charged to the United 
States. 

'•' liesolvedy Thatif the application of these States to the go- 
vernment of the United States, recommended in a foregoing 
Resolution, should he unsuccessful, and peace should not 
WE CONCLUDED, and the defence of these States should be neg- 
lected, as it has been since the commencement of the war, it 
will, in the opinion of this Convention, be expedient for the 
liegislatures of the several States to appoint Delegates to 
miother Convention, to meet at Boston, in the State of Mass- 
achusetts, on the third Thursday of June next, with such 
powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momen- 
tous may require." 

" Resolved, That the Hon. George Cabot, the Hon. Chaun- 
rey Goodric)), and the Hon. Daniel Lyman, or any two of 
tht-m, be authorized to call another meeting of this Convention, 
to be holden in Boston^ at any time before new Delegates 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 5S 

shall be chosen, as recommended in the above resolution, if 
in their judgment the situation of the country shall urgently 

require it." 

Correspondence between the Hon. A. Stewart, of S'fatmton, 
and Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Executor of Thomas Jef- 
ferson, deceased. Charlottesville, Oct. 11, 1828. 
Bear Sir: lam advised that among the papers in your pos- 
session, there is a letter written by your grandfather, vindi- 
eating Mr Adams' political course in the support which he 
gave to his administration, and the reasons whicii entitled him 
to so large a share of his confidence. It is important that 
their connexion should be explained, and that the history of 
this interesting period should be known to the people. It is 
important that it should now be known. Your grandfailier, 
if living, would not withhold his testimony in favor of any 
meritorious public servant, particularly one who has been so 
distinguished an aid, and so bright a;i ornament, to his admin- 
istration. Candid men of all parties will be gratified to re- 
ceive testim.ony from so pure a source. May I then ask the 
favor of you to furnish nie Viith a copy of the letter referred 
to, that it may be laid before the pecple. 

I am, dear sir, very aftectionatelv, vours, &c. 

ARCHIBALD STEWART. 

Th. J. Randolph. 

Edgehlll, Oct. 11, 1828. 
Dear Sir: — In compliance with y(iur request, I send you a 
copy of th" letter, I presume, alluded to in your note of this 
morning. Conscious that to suffer any writiiigs of my grand- 
father, in my possession, to be made subservient to the use of 
any peisonal or political purpose, would be an iinwoilhy and 
:m])roper abuse of the trust reposed in me, I have, neverthe- 
less, deemed it entirely c<tusistent with its faithful discharge, 
to allow them to be used as vindicatory testimony of the clia- 
lacter or conduct of any individual, where they would fairly 
admit of that construction. This I believe to be one of those 
cases. The facts contained in this letter have long been fa- 
miliar to me, having often heard them, with great interest, 
from my grandfather, in conversation with others on diiTerent 
occasions, from the date of their occurrence to his death. I 
am aware that tliis piecemeal publication of his corre«;pon- 
dence, many of his letters, too, seeing tiie light mutilated and 
detached from their contexts, would bear the appearance of 
inconsistent and contradictory o'jinions; yet the evil has no 
corrective but in the full publication of his manuscripts, which 
will ere long appear, when tlie public being in possession of 
the whole, will be enabled to form a just judgment. 

Very affectionately, vours, 
Judge jl. Stewart. TH. JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 



54 MR ADAMS, 

Mr. Giles : Monticello, Bee 25, 1825. 

Dear Sir — Your favor of the 15th was received four days 
ago. It found me engaged in what I could not lay aside till 
tliis day. 

Far advanced in my 83d year, worn down with infirmities 
which have confined me almost entirely to the house for seven 
or eig'.it months past, it afflicts me much to receive appeals to 
my memory for transactions so far back as that which is the 
subject of your letter. My memory is, indeed, become almost 
a blank, of which no better proof can probably be given you 
than by my solemn protestation that I have not the least re- 
collection of your intervention between Mr John Q. Adams 
and myself, in what passed on the subject of the embargo. 
Not the slightest trace of it'remains in my mind. Yet I have 
no doubt of the exactitude of the statement in your letter.^ 
And the less as I recollect the interview with Mr Adams, to 
whicii the previous communication which had passed between 
him and yourself, were probably and naturally the prelimi- 
nary. That interview I remember well; not, indeed, in the 
very words which passed between us, but in their substance, 
whicli was of a character too awful, too deeply engraved in my 
mind, and in inlluencingtoo materially the course I had to pur- 
sue, ever to be forgotten. Mr Ailams called on me pending 
the embargo, and while enileavors were making to obtain its 
repeal. He made some apologies for the call, on the ground 
of our not bein^fhen in the habit of confidential conimunica- 
tions. but that wh.ich he had then to make involved too seriously 
the interest of our country not to overrule all other considera- 
tions with liiui. and make it his duty to reveal it to myself par- 
ticularly. I assured him there was no occasion for an apology 
for his visit; tiiat, on the contrary, his comnuinications would 
be thankfully received, and woulil add a coiifiiination the moio 
to ni}' entire confidence in the rectitude and patriotism of his 
conduct and principles. He spoke then of the dissatisfaction 
of the Eastern portion of our confederacy with the restraints 
of the embargo then existing, and their restlessness under it. 
That there was nothin;; which might not be attempted to rid 
themselvi's of it. That he had int'orniation of the most unques- 
tionable cerlaiiitv, tliat certain citi'/.ens ofihe Eastern States, 
(I think he named Massachusetts particularly,) were in tiego- 
ciation with the agents of theBi'itish Unverniuent, the object 
of whicli was an agreement that the New Kiiglaiid States should 
take no further part in tlv^ war then going on; (hat, wilh(>ut 
formally declaring their separation iVom the Union of the 
States, they should withdraw I'rom all aid and obedience to 
them: that iheir naviiiatinn and commerce should be free from 
restraint or iriter rUjitiuir hv the Hiiti>]i; that they s-hould he 
considered and tieaied by them as neulral,-, and as such might 



AND THE BOSTON FEDERALISTS. 55 

conduct themselves towards both parties; and at the close of 
the war be at liberty to rejoin this confederacy. 

He assured me that there was imminent danger that the 
convention would take place; that the temptations were such 
as mi^ht debauch many from their fidelity to the Union, and 
that, to enable its friends to make head against it, the repeal 
of the embargo was absolutely necessary. I expressed a just 
sense of the merit of the information, and of the importance of 
the disclosure to the safety and even salvation of our country; 
and however reluctant I was to abandon the measure (a mea- 
sure which, persevered in a little longer, we liad subsequent 
and satisfactory assurance would have effected its object com- 
pletely) from that moment, and influencf'd by that informa- 
tion, i saw the necessity of abandoning it, and, instead of ef- 
fecting our purpose by this peaceful weapon, we must fight it 
out, or break the Union. I then recommended to my friends 
to jaeld to the necessity of a repeal of the embargo, and to 
endeavor to supply its place by the substitute in which they 
could procure a general concurrence. 

1 cannot too often repeat, that this statement is not pre-; 
tended to be in the very words which passed — that it only 
gives faithfully the impression remaining on my mind. The 
very words of a conversation are too transient and fugitive to 
be so long retained in remembrance. But the substance was 
too important to be forgotten; not only from the revolution of 
measures it obliged me to adopt, but also from the renewals 
of it in my meuiory on the frequent occasions I iiave had of 
doing justice to Mr Adams, by repeating this proof of his 
fidelity to his country, and of his superiority over all ordinary 
considerations, when the safety ot that was brought into ques- 
tion. 

With this best exertion of a waning memory which I can command, accept 
assiirai>ces of my constant friendship and respect, 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Note.— Extracts from a confidential letter of Mr Jefferson to William B. 
Giles, dated 25th Do-cember, 18"25, will le found in the Richmond Enquirer 
of the 7th September, 1827. 

"Monticello, Jan. 21, 1826. 
Dear Sir: — Your favor of Jan. 15th is received, and 1 ait» 
entirely sensible of the kindness of your motives which sug- 
gested the caution it recommended: but I believe what I have 
done, is the only thing I could have done, with honor and 
conscience. Mr Giles requested me to state a fact, which 
he knew himself, and of which he knew me to be possessed. 
What use he intended to make of it, 1 knew not, nor have I 
a right to inquire, or to indicate any suspicion that he would 
make an unfair one ; that was his concern, not mine, and his 
character was sufficient to sustain the responsibility for it. I 



56 MR ADAMS, 

knew too, if an uncandid use should be made of it, there would 
be found those who would so prove it. Independent of the 
terms of intimate friendship, on which Mr Giles and myself 
have ever lived together, the world's respect entitled him to 
the justice of my testimony to any truth he mi^^ht call for; and 
how that testimony should connect me with whatever he may 
<lo or write hereafter, and with his whole career, as you ap- 
prehend, is not understood by me. With his personal con- 
troversies, [ have nothing to do. I never took any part in 
,them, or in those of any other person; add to this,' that the 
statement I have given him on the subject of Mr Adams, is 
entirely honorable to him, in every sentiment and fact it con- 
tains. There is not a word in it which I would wisii to recall; 
it is one which Mr A. himself might willingly quote, did he 
need to quote any thing. It was simply, that during the con- 
'tinuance of the embargo, Mr A. informed me of a combina 
tion, (without naming any one concerned in it,) which had for 
its object a severance of the Union, for a time at least; that 
Mr Adams and myself, not being then in the habit of mutual 
consultation and confidence, I considered it as the stronger 
proof of the purity of his patriotism, vvldch was able to lift him 
above all party passions when the safety of his country was 
endangered; nor have I kept the honorable fact to myself; 
.during the late canvass particularly, I had more than one oc- 
.casiori to quote it to persons who were expressing opinions re- 
specting him, of which this was a direct corrective. I have 
never entertained for Mr Adams any but sentiments of esteem 
and respect; and if we have n<.t tho'iglit alike on political sub- 
jects, 1 yet never doubted the honesty of his opinions; ot 
which the letter in questicm, if published, will bean additional 
proof. Still I recognize your friendship in suggesting a review 
of it. I am glad of this as of every oilier occasion of repeat- 
ing to you the assurance of my constant attachment and res- 
pect. THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

The above additional papers have been furnished us, for 
publication; and we are informed that a Reply to the Appeal 
will apj)ear in due season. , 

AUUANGEMKN'r OK 111^ PJ{i:GEI)13.(i PAPERS. 



1. Advcrliseuieiit of tlio Boston Kdil ion, - - . 

'2. Ex Trtct tVoni ihi- Xiitional IntclligtiKir, of Oct. 21, 1828, 

3. Letter of llif ciii/.ons of IJnston to .Mr Aiiuius, Nov. '.'9, 1S28, 

4. Mr Ailiims's ri})lv to tin- iiricoriin^' loiter, Der. 30, IS'^S, 

5." Appi-ul to tlii; citizens (.f tin U. S. In the Boston Feder.ilists, 
7'/i/' ./lihljlinnnl. Ponerf!. 



6 

8 to 20 

20 to 43 








sr« 






CORRESPONDENCE 




]3ETWEEN 



JOHN aUINCY 4.DAMS, 





President of the United States. 



SEVERAL CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS 



COXC£UKIXG 









^Clje Cliavfir 



A DESIGN TO DISSOLVE THE UNION 



ALLIGED TO HATE EXISTED IJf THAT STATE. 




To Nvhicli are now added 

4DPITIONAL, PAPEKS, 

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE SUBJECT. 





Wi^uiyxn^inxif 




I'KINTED AJiD SOLD »Y JONATHAN ELLIOT. 

1829. 












^<3 












I 



lf: jl '09 



